As Told In Song
by Victoria Hughes
Summary: COMPLETE. '07 Movie adaption. Alone, mute, and chased by Decepticons and humans alike, Bumblebee must manage to find the key to the Allspark and its keeper before he's killed. Radio song communication just doesn't always cut it. Bumblebee POV.
1. That Don't Impress Me Much

_This story has been nagging me since I first watched the movie a week ago (late to the party, that's me). The large majority of the first Transformers movie is told from the point of view of Sam, who doesn't know what's going on until relatively late. On the other hand, the story told from the point of view of Bumblebee would be very, very different. Here's a character that knows exactly what's going on, and has known for some time, but _can't tell anyone.

_Hence, a novelization fic. Which officially makes me a loser in the relative scheme of things, but I'll just throw this out there. Hopefully someone will enjoy it._

**Prologue: That Don't Impress Me Much**

There were good days (too few and far between: when a lead would appear in front of him, or the day when Jazz had confirmed the Allspark was, in fact, on this planet); there were bad days (when Barricade caught up to him). But mostly, there were just a lot of neutral days, driving back and forth over the continent upon which, _somewhere_, the Allspark waited. Bumblebee told himself jokingly that he barely remembered what his protoform looked like these days, but there wasn't much excuse –or many places – to leave his chosen alt-mode.

At the moment, he was tucked into the back corner of a subterranean parking garage in the overly active city of Las Vegas, 'licking his wounds' as a human might say. (Not that humans actually did that. Apparently their domesticated animals did.)

Four days ago Bumblebee had stumbled upon what he thought at the time was the greatest stroke of luck to ever cross his sensors: the Allspark, shining like a beacon in southwestern deserts of the continent. Overjoyed, Bumblebee had been certain that he could have flown straight to the outer reaches of this solar system under his own propulsion – and possibly foolishly, he had chosen not to waste time seeking out a good hiding place so he could send a long wave radio chatter back to the _Ark_, but instead rushed to find the Allspark. After all, if he knew, then the Decepticons doubtlessly did too, and Bumblebee would sooner be slagged than let Barricade beat him to it. He'd made a metaphorical beeline for the signal.

But the closer he got, the more things seemed somehow wrong. For one thing, the signal didn't seem to radiate enough strength when he got closer. He may have had other things on his mind in Tyger Pax, but the feeling of the Allspark erupting into the sky within range of his optics had felt like fire at his back. This was too controlled, and almost too concentrated. The crater the signal radiated from was actually made too recently and was too big for the Allspark to have landed here on the calculated trajectory Jazz had produced. The final warning he might have missed if he hadn't slowed down, but there were humans, and they were everywhere – here, in the middle of relative nowhere – with their guns and vehicles. They often practiced battle techniques against each other in a region no more than 500 miles from here, but this was no drill; they were waiting for … something.

_Surely not harmless little me? _Bumblebee had wondered with wry amusement, changing his course for someplace more secluded and with a better vantage point to perform some reconnaissance.

A single jet (Lockheed Martin F-22, Raptor design) screamed overhead, flying towards the signal the not-Allspark was giving off. Bumblebee noted the arrival and increased the range of his EM sensors in expectation of more jets, backing himself under the sparse cover of a rock formation; his sensors with wild with input from the sheer amount of magnesium and iron alloys in the ground. With an internal wince, Bumblebee dialed back his scans several notches.

There were no more jets forthcoming, even as the first F-22 began to circle back towards the crater. A half-formed idea began to take shape in Bumblebee's processors, but before he could fully appreciate the concept, the jet suddenly opened fire on the waiting humans.

If Bumblebee hadn't been in alt-mode he would have visibly jumped. _A Decepticon other than Barricade! _He hadn't realized that any other Decepticons had made landfall, although it had only been a matter of time with Barricade there. There were a fair number of flight-capable Decepticons out there, but only one that Barricade kept ship with. _Starscream!_

_Of all the rotten luck._ Bumblebee stayed where he was, nervous anticipation flooding his circuits. He didn't think this was the Allspark, but what if he was wrong? What if Megatron had damaged his memory banks as well and he simply didn't remember properly what the Allspark felt and sounded like? It had been a long time, after all, even by Cybertronian reckoning. He couldn't let the Decepticons get it first, no matter what. There was no time to pull back, no time for Prime and the others to land and get here.

He needed to get closer.

On the one hand, this was an extraordinarily dangerous idea with Starscream flying around and virtually no cover out in this desert landscape. On the other hand, Starscream was keeping the humans handily distracted, and the humans were probably distracting him. If he were going to get a chance, this would be it. _I'll move fast, get in and out, and verify for myself. And if it is the Allspark … _well, he'd probably end up dying defending it. He'd send out an encrypted chatter giving his location to the _Ark_ if it was the last thing he did, though.

Bumblebee downshifted himself and accelerated. On his dashboard he nearly broke the speedometer indicator off its gears as he hit speeds considerably over the normal limits of a 1976 Chevrolet Camaro; he rode roughshod over the uneven, roadless desert dust. Explosions from Starscream's missiles made the ground shudder and washed out the Autobot's EM sensors, and the _poppoppoppoppop_ of automatic weapons fire assaulted his audio circuits.

The signal of the Allspark abruptly winked out.

Bumblebee faltered at the suddenness of it. He estimated himself to be visible as a cloud of dust to the naked human eyes at the crater when he slammed on the brakes, uncertain if he wanted to throw himself into a fray over what was now empty space.

He was distracted by the sight of Starscream streaking away to the south, banking for a return run at the hapless humans (who doubtlessly thought one of their own had gone rogue or some nonsense). That was his excuse, anyway, for why he was T-boned spectacularly by a Saleen S281 modified Ford Mustang police cruiser.

Bumblebee's passenger side car door half-crumpled; he spun 1080 degrees, warning diagnostics lighting up behind his optics even as pain shuddered up what he thought of as his back. _Slag! _Half his sensors were rendered temporarily useless by the impact, leaving him virtually blind on his right side. He almost transformed, _almost_; instead he reversed and banked hard to the left, tires spinning without grip on the dusty ground.

The police car revved his engine like a gloat. _Barricade. Of course. _The Decepticon functioned in a role not unlike Bumblebee's, but with less 'scouting' and more 'plowing aside the inferior biological life forms until the Allspark is found'. On this planet it seemed his mission was to hunt Bumblebee down and harass the slag out of him.

To a human's ears, the sounds that emanated from the police cruiser would have been a burst of unintelligible electronic sound. To Bumblebee, it was a particularly demeaning suggestion of what his designated purpose really was, followed by a familiar declaration: "Die, Autobot!"

_You first, _Bumblebee thought in frustration. While he relatively certain he could probably waste Barricade in his protoform, this wasn't the time or the place, much to his disappointment, and Starscream was nearby; Bumblebee didn't fancy _that _two-on-one battle. He didn't bother to wait around and see if Barricade decided to go protoform; he dug his wheels in and whistled by Barricade with barely inches to spare, taking off towards the nearest road.

"Running like always, huh!?" Barricade mocked, but Bumblebee knew he'd given himself a good lead by forcing Barricade to turn to chase him. "You Autobots are all the same: fragging cowards, all of you!"

For all intents and purposes rendered mute for over ten thousand Earth years, it had been a long time since the Autobot had been able to properly exchange barbs with a Decepticon. But humans made more … _creative _use of airwaves than many other planetary cultures, one that Bumblebee found worked well for him.

He switched on his radio and found the desired station. _"Hit the road, Jack, and doncha come back no more no more no more no more! Hit the road, Jack, and doncha come back no more!"_

Barricade let out a scream of rage. "You slagging little scrap heap!" He always did seem to have the most interesting reactions to Bumblebee's music choices. Bumblebee revved his engine and poured on more speed, sprinting away on wheels. Barricade put up a good chase, but for the moment he was falling behind; the Autobot was not sure how long that would last, since he couldn't keep up this pace forever.

The scream of jet engines and a spray of bullets to Bumblebee's left made 'Bee jerk his wheel to the right, almost into a rocky outcropping he had been unable to see and unable to sense thanks to his damaged recievers. He swerved, fishtailing wildly; errors flashed and it _hurt_ to pour on enough torque to counteract the uncontrolled movement. Starscream roared overhead, his voice Dopplered to the point that Bumblebee couldn't decipher what he said, but it didn't matter; the Decepticon had clearly shifted his focus. He arced back around to aim again from another angle.

Bumblebee could outrun Barricade and outmaneuver Starscream … individually. Together, and already marginally crippled, he had no idea how he was going to escape. But even as his spark threatened to seize in its chamber, he felt a margin of relief: the signal couldn't have been the Allspark. Starscream wouldn't be taking out his frustrations on Bumblebee if it were.

The road! Bumblebee bounced himself on his front chassis to ease the considerable gully of a runoff ditch and hit the asphalt at close to 150 miles per hour. Tires screeching, he did a complete one-eighty and tore off down the road, taking note with some pleasure how Barricade completely failed to imitate 'Bee's jump and took almost one hundred feet of burning rubber to get himself oriented the right way. "I'm going to pluck off your limbs one by one and shove them in a garbage compressor!"

"_Oooh, woah, you think you're something special? Ooh, woah, you think you're something else? That don't impress me much," _Bumblebee blasted on his speakers, gaining some minor amusement from the answering curse.

Bumblebee would have sent another offending song Barricade's way if Starscream hadn't pelted his hood with bullets at that moment. The Autobot banked hard and braked, screeching sideways down the middle of the deserted road and presenting Starscream with his already damaged right side. Bullet fire slammed into his door, ripping holes in his armor and sending another paroxysm of pain and errors to 'Bee's processors; Barricade was coming too fast on his left even as Starscream came in low. For a horrible, tractionless moment, Bumblebee thought Starscream was going to transform right on top of him and he wouldn't be able to turn in time to avoid another ramming from Barricade, but at the last second he managed to twist his frame away. Barricade clipped his rear fender; Starscream broke the sound barrier right over both of their hoods, creating an audio-sensor-deafening _boom._

Bumblebee's energon was running so hot now that even with the significant damage to his right side and the overload to his audio sensors he believed he could have maintained his 200 mph plus speed run for breems. (His processors told him that he could hold his current speed for another 306.28 miles before he was on reserve power, and another 148.67 miles after that he would be offline whether he liked it or not.) He made a break for it as Barricade struggled to turn once again.

The Autobot probably would have made a clean getaway then if Starscream hadn't still been intent on the chase. Streaking in from his right, Bumblebee didn't register the missile that decimated the asphalt 867 feet in front of him until it exploded into a dazzling fireball and wall of smoke. 'Bee swerved hard and maneuvered to avoid flying debris, but he was forced to slow down, unsure how wide or deep the dust-cloud-obscured hole in the asphalt was.

Barricade was roaring down on top of him, not crippled by damaged sensors. Bumblebee couldn't avoid Barricade and the hole in the road both; he chose to avoid the road, rattling off the asphalt and into the smoke cloud.

Barricade rear-ended him, lifting Bumblebee's back tires right off the road for a moment. The Autobot fishtailed again as his tires hit the ground. "What, no snappy comebacks now? Don't you have anything to say, Autobot? Oh, wait – you _can't talk!_"

_Primus, I hate him, _Bumblebee thought. But in truth he was in real trouble; between Starscream and Barricade, he was pretty much a guaranteed pile of rust on the side of the road. He reconsidered transforming; at the very least he could go down with a fight. Prime would never approve, but if Bumblebee's spark was going out, well slag it all, so was Barricade's--!

But then, provenance. If Starscream had intended another pass at Bumblebee he wasn't able to get it; two new Raptor F-22 models suddenly roared into the sky, dropping down in perfect formation on either side of Starscream. With another garbled curse, the Decepticon was forced into retreat, zooming off towards the horizon. And as Bumblebee bounced and skidded back onto the road, Barricade began to drop back, cursing aloud. _Some unforeseen damage, I hope, _Bumblebee thought as he dug into his energon stores and roared back up to full speed.

He had lost Barricade in the highway interchange just outside of Las Vegas and limped his way down the Strip, too exhausted to properly appreciate the maximized gaudiness in all its glory; his only goal had been to find a secluded place to send a package of data to the Ark and go find a place to recharge; the last thing he wanted was for his comrades to come charging to Earth after a false, flickering Allspark signal.

The damage done by Megatron in Tyger Pax had been to his voice processors: they had been crushed beyond recognition. Humans, interestingly, had an equivalent biological component located in a similar part of their anatomy, the 'throat'. However, the functions of the voice processors were broader; in a sense, Bumblebee couldn't remember _how_ to speak. Even if his actual voice had full function, without those critical capacitors all Bumblebee would produce would be bursts of unintelligible noise. Translation: even forms of communication that did not require direct use of his voice was reduced to pictographs or writing.

He picked and chose a selection of his memory banks of the last day for sendoff, wrote off an analysis of the data and added an apology to Ratchet, who would be less than pleased about his state of wear. Then, under the cover of darkness in the shadows of a building, he unfolded into his protoform, shot off an encrypted data stream, and too soon folded back down into the shape of a Camaro.

Now, three days later, he revved his engine experimentally, opening and closing both his doors in unison. Thankfully, none of the damage he had sustained was of a permanent nature and could be self-repaired. He ran a diagnostic on his right sensors; twenty error messages popped up, but compared to the couple hundred a few days before, the remaining damage was minor.

There had been plenty of time to think between recharge cycles. _That was a trap, _'Bee acknowledged to himself. _Laid for … well, that would be hard to say. Any Cybertronian, really. _The humans couldn't have expected Starscream, though, or they would have been better prepared. Granted, the Autobot hadn't managed much reconnaissance before the whole thing had become a run for his life, but he estimated the trap was sufficient to catch either himself or Barricade if they dashed in without heed. While Bumblebee knew humans were aware of Cybertronian presence on their planet in a limited fashion, the trap confirmed three things: one, that humans knew the location of, or had in their possession, the Allspark. Jazz had offered that suspicion some time ago, when he had deciphered the Allspark's signal but found it oddly weak and dissipated, suggested it was well shielded. Two, that humans were able, on some scale, to harness the power of the Allspark. What use that had for biological lifeforms was hard for Bumblebee to say. Three, and perhaps most importantly, humans recognized the link between Cybertronians and the Allspark.

Knowing the humans knew where the Allspark was and finding out what the humans knew were two different things. Humans made widespread use of an information tool known as the World Wide Web, a hardwire and airborne digital cornucopia of collective knowledge. Bumblebee had downloaded English, the local dialect, from it and sent it the Ark's way, along with a more personal message: _Interfacing with current technology on this planet is too easy. I suspect a Cybertronian root, likely Decepticon by their encryption base._

Optimus Prime had opined that it was Megatron. The thought was enough to send tingles down Bumblebee's circuits. Wouldn't it be just ridiculous if the last Cybertronian to see him so many vorns ago were the first to see him now, after his long absence? But Megatron would have decimated this planet long ago if something hadn't stopped him. Surely not these creatures, whose very concept of civilization went back only a fraction of Bumblebee's lifetime; something else had done it. The think-tank of Jazz, Ratchet and Optimus had decided that Megatron probably did whatever-it-was to himself on accident: most likely he had deep-frozen himself on one of the planet's poles. The kind of extreme heat needed to slag a Cybertronian body was rarely available on the surface, but below certain temperatures the circuits just shut themselves down. Humans weren't commonly at either pole, their own physiology ill-fitted for extreme weather, but somehow, at some time, they had quite likely found a frozen Cybertronian body and taken advantage of the technology it had to offer.

The final conclusion drawn was that whoever had found Megatron probably had thereafter found the Allspark. Megatron knew where it was, long before anyone else did, successfully traversing hundreds of millions of miles of space in nothing but his protoform, only to crash-land on the planet when he got there. _Rather typical of him, _Bumblebee snickered to himself. Thank Primus the Decepticons tended to trip over themselves and their strife so often. But with only limited expeditions to either geomagnetic end to work with, Bumblebee had someplace to start looking.

Of course Bumblebee had scoured the Internet for more information, but he had eventually come to the conclusion that wherever the Allspark and Megatron were, it was not publicly disclosed. Lead after lead had been discarded, and now Bumblebee was down to his last one: the expedition of Captain Archibald Witwicky over 100 years previous. It was a likely choice. Witwicky had 'gone mad' with claims of seeing a giant ice man in the Antarctic, which lent credit to Optimus' theories. Here the information came to an end, though; the insane asylum the man had lived in was gone, burned to the ground. Besides, the man would have been dead. Humans rarely lived much longer than a vorn. Bumblebee had tracked down his descendants, working his way methodically across the country to each of their places of residence, but this little side trip to the not-Allspark had left him closest to Tranquility, Nevada, home of Ronald Witwicky, father of Samuel Witwicky, grandson and great-grandson of Archibald Witwicky.

Bumblebee quietly started his ignition and rolled out of his chosen parking space, starting back up towards the surface and taking advantage of the navigational websites available to track a path to Tranquility. _It's always in the last place you look, 'cause you wouldn't keep looking if you found it, _he mused.

Easing onto the road, sensors alert for a familiar police car, the Autobot joined the stream of cars out of Las Vegas, one in a million to nearly anyone who cared to look.

_To be continued _

_Events in this chapter are based on information from Transformers: The Movie Prequel by IDW comics. Blackout was also present for the attack on the 'ambush' attempt, but you can assume Bumblebee never laid optics on him. Music credits go to Shania Twain (That Don't Impress Me) and Ray Charles (Hit the Road Jack)._

_Please review! Thank you!_


	2. Fight of the Bumblebee

**Chapter 1: Fight of the Bumblebee**

When there weren't any Decepticons around, Bumblebee's favorite part of his job was reconnaissance. Far and away, the most common form of life in the galaxy was biological. Most of it was nonsentient. On the occasions it _was_ sentient, machines almost always followed, and thus Cybertronians were able to successfully disguise themselves whenever it was necessary.

If the war had never happened – if Bumblebee had only been created a few vorns earlier – he figured he might have been a colonizer for the Cybertronian Empire. Meeting and observing indigenous life was just _fascinating._

The neighborhood the Witwicky's had made their home in was upscale middle class suburbia. The family consisted of two parental units, who were the Creator of their single child. They kept a domesticated pet, a Chihuahua, which bore resemblance to nothing so much as a large rodent although it was classified as a type of dog. Ronald Witwicky spent much of his free time caring for the short green vegetation known as grass that covered his lawn and adding decorations of his own; his job was located in a building 13.63 miles away via the roadways. The mother added her own vegetation in a variety of brillant colors around the sides of the home or lay on a reclining chair in the sun, reading books. The boy left early in the morning for school and returned in the mid-afternoon, only to leave for a variety of activities shortly thereafter.

School was a particularly interesting concept to Bumblebee. Cybertronians had no need for such an institution. Certainly there had been – before the war – institutions of learning, but those had been dedicated to discovery, not teaching what was already known. Knowledge that was needed was instilled shortly after creation in the form of downloads; societal functions were determined by form rather than choice, although such things could be outmoded. (Bumblebee, less than a vorn old when the fracture between Optimus Prime and Megatron had become public knowledge, had certainly not been created with missile launchers in his shoulders or a pulse cannon in his arm; those had come later.) Maturity was considered to come when a Cybertronian had completed its programming sequences and was able to transform out of protoform. But humans, short though their lives were, spent a longer percentage of their life reaching full maturity and approximately one-fourth to one-third of their average lifespan attending school, where the collective human knowledge of the world was passed down verbally and visually to the younger generations. Humans had imperfect processors as well; repetition was necessary to cement a concept in the human mind, and concepts could be later forgotten with no external stimuli causing damage. Humans were graded on their ability to retain passed-down knowledge, and those somewhat subjective marking systems determined how much more learning a human could participate in and dictated future societal functions (careers; jobs) almost as much as personal choice.

Concepts that were in danger of being forgotten were recorded in written format on paper: flammable, susceptible to external damage, and bulky compared to a microchip. Bumblebee couldn't figure out why humans did not simply convert all books to electronic format, but instead dedicated entire websites to places where books could be purchased. Perhaps there was some sort of external pleasure derived from book reading? The youngest Witwicky, 'Sam', did not seem to find anything about the books his school provided interesting; Bumblebee had heard the young human complaining loudly about how much reading he had to do on several occasions.

But his paternal unit placed a high value on the grade concept 'A'. This was apparently the necessary mark (in triplicate) for Sam to acquire his first automobile, along with two thousand US dollars, the common form of currency. Sam was very concerned with this matter, and when he was home he spent much of his time in his room, the only sound turning pages and occasionally phone calls to his friend Miles.

Sam's other great concern in life was his ability to attract members of the opposite sex.

Many biological life forms had a diametric split in their functionality (both biological and to some degree societal), and humans were no exception. Males and females had to work together to procreate, whereupon the female would incubate the unborn progeny for a period of close to a year. In a basic family unit, the male and female would then care for their tiny sparkling (no, baby) for about the same amount of time as the child spent being schooled. Upon reaching maturity, the child would be expected to then repeat the process with another mate, and so on.

Acquiring a mate – and the act of procreation, known as sex – was a great concern of both male and female humans alike. A disproportionately large portion of the Internet was dedicated to the subject. It was hard to say if the act hurt or pleasured, but it seemed more likely to be pleasurable. Subjects such as beauty, personal hygiene, and even vehicular choice, careers, and income were all tied back to the chance of successfully landing a mate and/or mating. Sam was no different from any other human in his obsession with 'dating' and 'hot chicks', which from his point view depended equally on his physical attractiveness and how 'sweet' his 'ride' was. ('Hot' referring, of course, to attractiveness, and 'sweet ride' to the functionality and appearance of his vehicle.)

Ratchet would have been fascinated to know that humans did not use pheromones – or rather, did not sense pheromone output – to attract one another. Indeed, the entire matter seemed to be almost completely psychological, culminating in feeling and declaring love. Sex itself was actually referred to as 'making love'. (Although actually, it made babies. Bumblebee did not mind admitting the concept of sex was so beyond foreign to him that he found it unnerving. Even diametrically divided species were only a case study to Cybertronians, after all; the Allspark was their only source of life.)

Even their _songs_ were often dedicated to the subject of love and attraction, and since the radio was Bumblebee's primary form of speech now, he found himself listening to them quite a lot.

But all this was a minor side pursuit in his overarching mission: find some hint of the Allspark. Bumblebee had been observing the Witwicky's for two weeks by human reckoning, and they seemed unlikely to know anything about the Allspark. Given that the country's military apparently had the Allspark in their control, Bumblebee had expected the father to work for the military, but Ronald Witwicky held down an unremarkable, unrelated job. Archibald Witwicky had never been a subject of conversation to Bumblebee's hearing. He had gradually moved in closer and closer, pretending to be a car parked two streets down, periodically driving by their residence, and following the various family members to external destinations, but none of them had noticed him. They were an unremarkable suburban family that contained descendants of an ordinary man who had discovered something extraordinary, and they didn't even seem to know he had done so.

Bumblebee was facing the prospect of sitting on yet another dead end. Even more disheartening was that he was one descendant away from exhausting his leads and being forced to find some way to directly hardwire to places that would have military information. That level of infiltration would leave him forced to kill humans (not an option), severely injured (and easy for a Decepticon to pick off), or captured (likely with Megatron, if Megatron was deep frozen and with the humans, and just the thought of that made Bumblebee's processors overload).

_Slaggit! _Bumblebee found some angry, unintelligible hard rock on his radio and let that play. Human music was far from Cybertronian music, but the beat and digitized 'electric guitar' output was not dissimilar. Harsh chords filled his interior and made Bumblebee wish harder for a voice to curse with.

In front of him, Sam Witwicky disembarked from the bus that took him back and forth from his school and jogged across the lawn into his house. Bumblebee turned down the radio, did a u-turn and parked himself behind their fence, out of sight. "Sam, you _know _your father hates it when you walk on the grass," his mother admonished, although Bumblebee could not detect even exasperation in her voice.

"It's _grass_, it's meant to be walked on," Sam grumbled as he opened the sunroom door. "He lets Mojo piss on it, so why can't I walk on it?"

"I don't know, honey, but—"

"Yeah, yeah, his house, his rules," Sam answered, the sound of his feet on the stairs and his backpack slapping against his spine audible. "Is it okay if Miles comes over later?"

"As long as your homework is done," his mother said agreeably.

For a while all was quiet; Sam mumbled to himself about a few things; his mother ran the cleaning device known as a vacuum cleaner over the rugs (and figuring out what that sound was while only having the sound to identify it with had been an interesting pursuit).

Sam's friend Miles appeared 106 minutes after Sam had asked if he could come over. The adolescent wore his pale hair long (even when a human had finished reaching maturity, certain parts of their body continued to grow; their fingernails and toenails, their hair, and oddly, their ears and nose. Humans would shear off their hair and trim their nails at regular intervals to curb their growth. Bumblebee could not imagine how such a thing could not cause indescribable pain) and his preferred mode of transportation was via 'skateboarding', a board on wheels that could be steered by shifting one's center of gravity. Miles rolled into the driveway of the Witwicky home, kicked up the board into his waiting hands, and jogged up to the same sunroom door Sam had entered through. "Hi, Mrs. Witwicky!"

"Hi, Miles," Judy Witwicky said mildly. "Sam's upstairs. Are you staying for dinner?"

"Is'zat an invitation?" Miles asked. "Sure!" He was going up the stairs now, the same direction Sam had gone. "Thanks!"

"We're having spaghetti and salad! Tell Sam!" Judy called after him.

Sam and Miles exchanged greetings, Sam considerably less enthusiastic than Miles. But then the subject matter turned to something that made Bumblebee sit up on his axles.

"Dude … what is this stuff?" There was the sound of objects being pushed around a cardboard box.

"It's my great-grandfather's expedition stuff," Sam said in a disinterested tone.

_Captain Archibald Witwicky's expedition articles! _This was exactly what Bumblebee wanted to hear about! Maybe the Allspark – or at the very least, Megatron – would come up in conversation. Perhaps the family knew about the fate of the so-called 'Ice Man' after all!

"You mean the crazy granddad, right?" Miles asked.

"Great-granddad. Yeah."

"Cool … it's one of those navigation things."

"Sextant," Sam corrected absently, drawing a snicker from his friend. "Dude, what are you, five!?" That just made Miles snicker harder, and Sam groaned. "You want it? It's for sale."

Miles didn't answer directly, the sound of rummaging still audible. "Why'd you get all this stuff out?"

"Genealogy project for class." There was the sound of a book slamming shut. "I figured they'd be good props. My grade's riding on it."

"You really gonna get up and talk about your crazy granddad in class? In front of _Mikaela_?" Miles drawled out the final word, a name Bumblebee recognized from previous conversations. Apparently she was a female of particular interest to Sam due to her physical attractiveness.

"I'm not gonna talk about that part," Sam snapped. "I mean, look, the expedition itself was a really big deal. My great-grandfather was the first guy to make it into the Arctic Circle ever. And this stuff is really ancient so it's pretty valuable."

"But the Ice Man is the best part of the story," Miles protested.

Sam's voice conveyed how very unimpressed with Miles' enthusiasm he was. "I wish I'd never told you about that," he grumbled. There was a moment of silence while Bumblebee eagerly hoped that Sam would detail the story again. Surely he knew more than the urban legend and official records on the Internet.

"Check it out! Glasses were _tiny _back then," Miles exclaimed.

Suddenly all of Bumblebee's sensors drew to complete attention. His EM sensors were picking up an odd signal from Sam's room. His data banks brought up the last time the signature had been felt with little difficulty; at the time, Bumblebee had been having his vocal capacitors crushed by the leader of the Decepticon army.

It was like someone in Sam's room was holding a miniature, severely reduced replica of Megatron's optics.

"Don't break them! I'm putting those up on Ebay," Sam protested abruptly.

"Nobody on Ebay is gonna want a pair of really old broken glasses."

"How do you know? I only need a hundred bucks before I can get my car. People like old stuff, right?"

The signature disappeared abruptly. An EM signal that weak could have been easily shielded by a bit of encasing metal, but Bumblebee's curiosity was piqued. It was faint and almost non-directional; he would have never detected it from a distance of more than perhaps sixty feet from the home, and certainly not at all if his sensors had not all been tuned towards Samuel Witwicky's room.

It was easy to deduct the EM signal came from the aforementioned glasses (after discarding several colloquial uses of the word 'glasses', Bumblebee determined they were likely the ocular correctional variety, external instruments placed across the nose and ears to correct focus errors in human optics), since the EM signal came and went with the subject. Somehow, Captain Witwicky's eyeglasses had become imprinted with Megatron's EMS.

Bumblebee needed to get a scan of those eyeglasses.

"Sure your dad's not gonna be angry you're selling your great-granddad's stuff?" Miles was asking.

"Well, don't _tell _him." Sam's bed squeaked. "You staying for dinner?"

"Yeah, your mom asked. Whaddaya wanna do 'til then?" Their conversation drifted off to topics irrelavant as Bumblebee considered the information he had just gained.

Sam Witwicky was planning on _selling _those valuable glasses? That couldn't be allowed! Although how he could prevent such a thing from happening was a mystery. Bumblebee accessed the Internet and looked up the website Ebay.

Ebay functioned as a large-scale miscellaneous commodity advertisement, allowing members to sell and purchase items at individually assigned prices with relative privacy. Those willing to sell at the lowest price and those willing to buy at the highest price usually moved the most merchandise. A search for 'eyeglasses' led to an assortment of items, but the glasses of Archibald Witwicky was not amongst them. He tried several other searches: 'antiques', 'glasses', 'personal effects', et cetera, but although a few of Archibald Witwicky's other possessions were available (Sam selling them under the moniker 'Ladiesman217' – pseudonym practice was common on the Internet), the glasses were not amongst them. Bumblebee's fan turbines whirred with relief; for the time being they would remain in their current abode, well hidden and unnoticed. Then Bumblebee realized that if the Decepticons knew about Archibald Witwicky – and Bumblebee could not know for sure that they didn't – then they, too, would be interested in these artifacts, which were now displayed publicly for the world to see. Concern for the boy's well being flooded Bumblebee's capacitors. The Decepticons would not be so subtle about the information they wanted.

Later that night Bumblebee learned, through a conversation at the dinner table between Sam and Ronald ('Ron') Witwicky, that the genealogy project upon which Sam's grade depended was due on Friday, the sixth day out of seven in a human week. The upcoming Friday was three days away. Bumblebee made note of it as a day when the EMS-marked glasses would leave the house for an extended period of time.

In the meantime, he would wait for the glasses to be removed from their case so he could obtain a scan. He settled on his chassis, ready, he liked to believe, for anything.

&

'Anything' came the following night.

Sam Witwicky had put the eyeglasses up for sale. Bumblebee uploaded the webpage, then saved it to his processors and added it to the data package he intended to send in the hours preceding the rising of Earth's sun. Perhaps Jazz could get more out of the picture of the eyeglasses than Bumblebee could: he did not have the processors to analyze the low-resolution photograph provided. (Humans regarded the resolution as high, but their optics were far inferior through no fault of their own; they were clearly well enough equipped for their own needs.)

At 2:03 AM local time, Bumblebee's audio receivers and EM sensors picked up an unusual signature 328 feet south-southwest from the Witwicky home. Specifically, he heard the rumble of a particularly large and unmuffled engine, while at the same time registering nothing on his EM radials. An incongruity, since anything with electrical components gave off some kind of electromagnetic radiation.

The sort of incongruity that came with Cybertronians equipped with dampening fields.

Barricade was never this subtle. The last time he had attempted anything that resembled a sneak attack, it had been to ram a recharging Bumblebee across a parking lot and attempt to take out his innards with his blades. No, this was someone else: possibly a friend, but more likely a foe. The Autobot quietly started his engine and pulled out onto the road, following the sound and not-signal in a path that would take him past the Witwicky home.

The other Cybertronian was clearly advancing on the house. The not-signal hesitated when Bumblebee passed in front of the Witwicky residence; Bumblebee picked up his speed a little, determined to intercept before the other got too close to the home. When he finally turned the corner that put the potential opponent in his optic range, Bumblebee paused, somewhat shocked by the sheer _lack _of subtlety.

The other Cybertronian was currently alt-moded as a _dune buggy, _mounted with a considerable anti-tank weapon and swathed in desert-camouflage coloring. And he was rolling around suburban Nevada like this! The holographic driver flickered as the Cybertronian hesitated under a lamppost, no doubt trying to assess Bumblebee as friend or foe.

"Who are you?" The Cybertronian asked at length.

Bumblebee couldn't answer for obvious reasons, and since this Cybertronian, whether Autobot or Decepticon, was not part of his particular Ark fleet, he couldn't directly uplink to transmit information. He settled for switching on the radio and playing a clip from 'Flight of the Bumblebee'. It was unlikely the Cybertronian would get the joke, even if he had learned the local language.

He was right; the Cybertronian revved his engine. "Don't play games! Do you serve our Lord Megatron or are you one of the Autobots?"

_I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. _Bumblebee revved his engine high and aggressively; a human equivalent might have been a snort of disgust.

"I should have known. Your lot always picks the most pathetic alt-modes." The Decepticon began to roll forward. "Get out of my way or get wasted, Autobot." Infrared sensors lit up as the Decepticon began to load his front cannon.

If he expected that to intimidate Bumblebee, he was sorely mistaken. He didn't move, but nor did he transform for the moment.

The Decepticon had to be here regarding the Witwicky family. The only other possibility, that he had been hunting Bumblebee, had been discarded by his lack of knowledge of the Autobot's presence. And as long as the glasses were in the Witwicky home – and as long as he acknowledged Optimus Prime as his leader – Bumblebee would die in defense of the indigenous life forms. He needed to distract the Decepticon so completely that he would not return – or slag him. It would have been a lie to say Bumblebee wasn't ready to waste one of the enemy after two years of just _running _from Barricade.

"What, are your processors damaged? I said, get out of my way," the Decepticon snarled. "You should count yourself lucky I'm not after you. Move and I'll spare your pathetic life, for now."

He did not want to transform here. It was foolish, exposing, and invited the Decepticon to do the same – they were never ones to back down from a show of aggression. But as Bumblebee desperately surfed the radio waves for something appropriately insulting to distract the Decepticon he found only Hispanic salsa, infomercials, and static.

Well. Static he could work with.

Maxing out his speakers, Bumblebee shut down his audio receivers and pumped out a low-frequency hertz at an extreme decibel level, one that actually threatened to shake his own circuits out of whack. Even directed at the Decepticon, the ground seemed to tremble with the frequency.

The Decepticon roared, an electronic shriek, and reversed for a moment in agony; his audio sensors had received the full assault, and he would likely be temporarily 'deaf'. _Suitable – a mute Autobot versus a deaf Decepticon. The quietest Cybertronian fight in history! _As Bumblebee switched his audio receivers back on, though, he was assaulted with infuriated cursing in Cybertronian at the same time as the Decepticon made his best attempt to run Bumblebee over.

Bumblebee reversed and squealed backwards around the corner before downshifting and accelerating down the residential street. The Decepticon, still shrieking curses and threats, took off after him. The Autobot did not drive too fast, since the point was to keep the Decepticon distracted, but also did his best to stay out of range of the ballistic cannon mounted on the Decepticon's alt-mode; he raised a map of Tranquility off the World Wide Web.

Tranquility had a quarry, a junkyard, and a chemical plant all not far from its borders, and humans rarely occupied any of them at this hour. The quarry, however, was closest. Bumblebee tracked out a path and drifted around a turn, accelerating long enough to knock a chainlink fence bearing signs saying things like "KEEP OUT" and "AUTHORIZED ENTRANCE ONLY" open.

The Decepticon reliably followed him. Bumblebee followed the authorized road until it turned to gravel and veered off in front of the considerable pit of a limestone quarry; here, he blithely picked up speed until his wheels pounded into air over the sheer drop.

He transformed in midair, flattened his sensors to his back, and landed sixty feet below with a ground-cushioning roll. He came to his feet already retracting the fingers of his right arm and drawing his pulse cannon to bear.

The Decepticon launched himself off the edge of the quarry already in protoform, and before Bumblebee could clear a shot, he fired off an anti-tank cannon round.

Bumblebee dodged; the resulting explosion of rock and dust propelled him several feet through the air to skid on his feet across gravel and dust. He returned fire, and by sheer lucky coincidence managed to explode an incoming round in midair, resulting in a brilliant plasma ball that briefly washed out his optics.

The Decepticon dove through the fallout and wrapped massive hands around Bumblebee's head, using his mass to throw the slightly smaller Autobot to the ground. Bumblebee used their combined momentum to slam both feet into the Decepticon's torso, launching the other off him; he rolled back to his feet, firing into the dust cloud raised by the 'Con's impact with the quarry wall.

He was caught unaware by the return round; which at such close range only registered as a flare of infrared light before appearing out of the dust cloud and clipping Bumblebee's shoulder. It was still enough to spin the Autobot halfway around, struggling to equalize his center of gravity, and the Decepticon fell on him, sending him crashing to the ground and grinding his faceplates into the rock. "I think I recognize your protoform," The Decepticon sneered, holding down Bumblebee despite his struggles. "Should've guessed when you wouldn't say a thing up there in alt-mode. Bumblebee, right? It's been a few vorns! Miss me?"

Now that the Decepticon wasn't masking his EM field and he'd gained a glance or two at his protoform, Bumblebee _did _recognize him: Hardtop. The Decepticon rode in a ship that flanked the _Nemesis _from time to time, and favored big explosions over subtlety on top of being a crack sniper with his finer weaponry.

The feel of Hardtop's cannon loading against the backplates that covered Bumblebee's spark galvanized the smaller 'Bot. "Dodge this," Hardtop sneered.

Bumblebee loaded his own cannon and fired at the ground under them.

The plasma-load superheated the rock and exploded it, launching Bumblebee and Hardtop in opposite directions. Damage warnings across his chestplates were all extraneous; there was a minor coolant leak that would reseal itself within minutes and superficial denting. But Hardtop was generally more dangerous at greater distances, so Bumblebee charged towards the Decepticon, coming in low before the other Cybertronian could recover. He caught Hardtop across the legs with his shoulder, wrapped his arms around Hardtop's knees, somersaulted over him, and flung the Decepticon as hard as he could towards the opposing quarry wall.

Hardtop flipped in midair, protecting himself by landing with one foot on the wall and the other on the ground, but he fell regardless and clouds of dust rose again. Bumblebee ran forward and slightly to the right; the following sniper fire of mini-plasma rounds fell where Bumblebee had stood a moment before, proving that the earlier assault on his audio receptors was affecting him. But as Hardtop charged clear of the dust his aim proved true again. Bumblebee folded down to alt-mode in an effort to avoid the incoming bullets and rammed himself into Hardtop's legs again.

Hardtop landed on top of him. Bumblebee's broken voice processors produced an involuntary squeaking noise that might have once translated as 'Slag it!', if only Bumblebee remembered _how to say it._ As it was he bucked his chassis to slide Hardtop halfway off himself. Hardtop grabbed at his undercarriage with one hand, then howled in pain at the same time as Bumblebee squeaked again in severe discomfort. Hardtop's fingers became trapped – and snapped off – into Bumblebee's interior by the Autobot's sudden transformation, crippling Hardtop's hand and locking Bumblebee's knee to only half its usual movement range.

Bumblebee scrambled, still trapped halfway under Hardtop, and fired his pulse cannon at point-blank range, sending the Decepticon skidding twelve feet across the ground.

The Decepticon was cursing and now visibly fritzing a little, superheated plasma having taken its toll on his chest armor. Bumblebee attempted to get to his feet but found Hardtop's fingers had jammed his gears; he staggered back to his knees. He was a waiting rust pile if he couldn't present a moving target to someone like Hardtop. "I thought I'd just disable you and get back to business," Hardtop was gasping, his cooling turbines overclocking in response to the damage. "But now I think I'll take your head off first!"

Bumblebee prepped and mounted his shoulder launchers, setting his aim thirty feet high; he launched his remaining three missiles. Hardtop ducked in automatic response, then laughed when the missiles struck the rock overhead. "Did I break your trajectory programming!?"

Bumblebee followed up with his pulse cannon, slagging and exploding the fault created by the last of his missile silo. As expected, the rock wall began to crumble.

Hardtop realized the purpose a moment too late. He twisted, and Bumblebee could see all his limbs lock in surprise before the incoming hail of rocks and dust obscured him from Bumblebee's optics. By the time the dust settled, the Decepticon was buried under an estimated seventy-two tons of granite and limestone. If the weight wasn't enough to crush his damaged armor, than he was almost certainly trapped in stasis lock. _Score, _he thought smugly, and finally found a station on XM Radio playing an appropriate song.

"_When you get what's yours … I got mine!"_

&

Bumblebee spent the next 74 minutes taking off his own leg from the knee down, picking Hardtop's fingers out of the gears, and replacing the limb. The damage to the gears was not significant enough to warrant immediate replacement, but as Bumblebee climbed the quarry wall to return to the Witwicky's he thought longingly of Ratchet; the occasional slipping of one partially stripped cog was enough to irritate.

By the time he arrived at an appropriately dark and quiet place to open a long wave radio communication, he was running 118 minutes late on the promised time. As a result, the moment he opened the channel he was assaulted by Jazz' voice. "Where the frag've you been, 'Bee!? You got our processors all on the fritz!"

_Sorry. I had to deal with some trouble, _Bumblebee wrote in response. _The data package is ready. I've had a breakthrough._

"Send it on up." Bumblebee could picture how Jazz sat at the _Ark's _computer, his legs thrown up on the dash and his arms crossed.

Bumblebee obediently transmitted the information. _I think the ocular correctional facilitators are the key, _he wrote – the closest he could get to 'eyeglasses' in Cybertronian. _Perhaps you can determine more with the Ark's computer._

"Well, lessee." There was 90 seconds of silence before Jazz continued, "Can you hold the channel a little longer? Or should we get back to you on this next check-in?"

Bumblebee took a moment, trying to make an honest assessment. _I think the information is important to how I proceed. I can hold the channel for 10 more minutes safely before we risk an encryption hack or detection._

"Then hang tight, little 'Bot," Jazz ordered, ignoring that he barely cleared Bumblebee's mass. Bumblebee waited patiently.

When the channel spat back to life, it was Optimus Prime that answered. "Bumblebee, your assessment is correct. We have determined that the ocular lenses bear Cybertronian navigational codes, although we cannot decipher them. The lenses themselves will be required."

Bumblebee boggled at the thought, his processors overloading as he tried to guess just how such a thing had occurred. _If Megatron was awake enough to imprint anything – never mind how he did it – how is it that Archibald Witwicky escaped with his _life!? _… Not that I am questioning you, sir._

Optimus Prime chuckled as he read the response. "That, we cannot be sure of. But we can be reasonably certain the coordinates on those lenses will lead to the Allspark. You say they are in the possession of a young human boy?"

_Yes, Samuel James Witwicky. He is the third generation direct descendant of Archibald Witwicky. As you can see, he has put up the glasses for purchase on a public website, so it is only a matter of time until the Decepticons realize the value of the lenses as well._

"Then I have a new task for you, my old friend." Optimus Prime transmitted relevant information as he gave the verbal order. "You are to guard Samuel Witwicky from all Decepticon attention until such time as we can make landfall. Seventy-two hours from now we will be in descent. Beacon your location at that time so we do not miss our target. I believe we have entered a race for the Allspark, Bumblebee; I hope you are ready."

_As ever, Captain, _Bumblebee wrote in response.

"Then go, and do your best," Prime ordered, and closed the radio link.

_To be continued_

_Music credits go to Kevin Rudolf (Let It Rock) and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Flight of the Bumblebee). Contents of this chapter can be credited to Hasbro's tie-in toy HardTop - an army buggy alt-moded Decepticon, his little biography indicates that he was the first Decepticon to find the Witwickys. Unfortunately for him, Bumblebee buried him under a ton of rock before he could do anything about it __In another version of his story Hardtop is credited with destroying Bumblebee's voice capacitors. Needless to say I prefer the drama of having Megatron take credit for that one._

_Thank you to those who reviewed the first chapter:_

_Lone Wolf (I'll do my best to address the question!)_

_Geekgirl (yes, 'Satan's Camaro' was pretty hilarious! From 'Bee's point of view it will be exceptionally frustrating.)_

_Whitedino (well, I hope you enjoyed!)_

_Hellfirefanatic (thank you! 'Bee _is_ awesome.)_

_And Anita H (I will do my level best to finish this. Having the whole plot already written for me will make it much easier. Glad you enjoyed!)_

_Please review!_


	3. Bitchin' Camaro

_As if I could resist the title._

**Chapter 2: Bitchin' Camaro**

The next twenty-eight hours were very quiet. Sam successfully sold two of Archibald Witwicky's personal effects, netting a total of roughly one hundred and seventy-eight dollars. Neither item was the precious eyeglasses, much to Bumblebee's relief. As Miles had observed, no one seemed to desire the visibly cracked, ancient ocular lenses, resulting in zero bids (bids being offered placements of value) on the item. If Barricade or any of his comrades were lurking around, they were staying well out of Bumblebee's sensor range.

There was a report in the online version of the local newspaper and, briefly, on a local radio station, about an unprovoked landslide in the abandoned quarry. Bumblebee wondered if they would unbury Hardtop, but it seemed unlikely.

Bumblebee had been alerted to the concept of a newspaper via informational stations on the radio: the radio informational bytes were short, lacked detail, and seemed to run as a prelude to the _real _news, which were inevitably weather and traffic patterns. (Apparently there were similar news stations on the television, but Bumblebee had limited use for those.) The newspaper had the potential to be a very useful tool; while what news he could get was limited on the radio stations to mostly local concerns, the sheer number of newspapers available to him on the Internet was astounding. The name came from its original format, one that was still widespread: local, national, and worldwide information printed on cheap paper for daily edification. Many, if not all, newspapers had online versions as well, and Bumblebee had become accustomed to keeping himself abreast of world events via these tools. Cybertron had a vaguely similar informational matrix available, but it was not nearly as … varied as the human version.

Because of the way humans processed the outside world, all observations were colored by previous experiences, opinions, and viewpoints. Of course Cybertronians also could experience bias: opinions had raged across the Empire when Megatron had sought to have Optimus Prime arrested for treason, and there had even been entire matrices of information run through corresponding logitac programs presented on both sides. However, stored data could be reproduced without logic processors interfering, allowing others to view the information without taint. Humans had no such option, and so, as the humans would say 'birds of a feather flocked together'. Each newspaper, whether the stories it printed were 'legitimate' (generally agreed to be of a factual base as opposed to a fantastic one) or not, claimed to be 'unbiased', but it was not in human nature to be able to present information without a personal bent. Those who agreed with one particular viewpoint would read one newspaper. Those who agreed with another opinion would read another newspaper.

Some of the stories revolved around politics, both internal (contained within one country, particularly the 'United States', which Nevada was a part of) and external (involving several countries); others were 'humanitarian', detailing short stories about the deeds of otherwise unknown individuals. Subjects varied as food preparation, health concerns, environmental cause and effect, energy sources, clothing trends, music, and movies all featured in the newspaper. Economics interacted heavily with politics as a subject, as did military operations taking place on the other side of the planet. It all made for very interesting reading when Bumblebee was making cross-country road trips, although most of it was irrelevant. In fact, in a rather ironic twist, it was often the weather and traffic patterns that proved most helpful.

(Humans persevered in the face of a volatile planet, Bumblebee realized. Hurricanes, blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, tidal waves, earthquakes and volcanoes … Earth was every bit as alive as Cybertron once had been. But unlike Cybertron, the Earth seemed to seek its inhabitants' destruction.)

This morning, as various websites updated their front pages the leading headline on all of them was, in varied words:

**HOSTILITIES IN IRAQ RESUME**

_Secretary of Defense Raises Terrorism Alert Level_

The gist of the full story was a United States military base in Quatar had been attacked and so annihilated that news reports stated there were no survivors. For a base housing over two hundred tanks, more than fifty aircraft, and roughly a thousand United States soldiers at the time of the attack, this was a devastating blow. The Secretary of Defense – a man occupying an office that reported directly to the militaristic and political head of the country, the President – considered the attack a resumption of terrorist activities and was mobilizing the full strength of the army in a bristling threat against whomever might have been behind it. The Secretary of Defense was expected to make a public statement regarding the matter later that day.

Bumblebee's assessment was necessarily a little different. Granted, he was not fully aware of the capabilities of human weaponry nor the specifications of the military base in question, but Bumblebee doubted that two hundred and fifty weapon-capable machines and one thousand fully trained men and women could have been wiped out in a single night without being caught completely by surprise against something they had no way or no knowledge of how to defend against. Two possibilities presented themselves: one, very unlikely, was a ballistic nuclear warhead strike. Having done his homework, so to speak, on nuclear strikes (only two offensive drops in the history of mankind), Bumblebee believed the headlines would read _quite _differently if that were the case. The second option was something completely alien, with perfect cover, infiltrating the base and taking the occupants by utter surprise, destroying the base before the humans could get to their weapons.

In other words, a Decepticon.

Quatar was located on another continent entirely, almost precisely on the other side of the planet and separated from Bumblebee's location by a massive expanse of saltwater sea; even if Bumblebee hadn't been reassigned to guard duty, he would be hard-pressed to find a safe way to transit that far to do recon.

There wasn't enough information to determine which, if any, Decepticon had attacked. Starscream was a distinct possibility; however, Bumblebee had now encountered three Decepticons, all cohorts of the fleet of the _Nemesis._ It was safe to guess that since the false Allspark signal, their enemies were making landfall in force. Bumblebee further extrapolated that the Decepticons were attacking military strongholds for the same reasons that Bumblebee had been briefly afraid he would be forced to recon from within one: the military held the Allspark or knew its location. Perhaps they even suspected their leader's capture.

Here Bumblebee encountered a contradiction in his logic program, however: the military housed the Allspark and was aware of Cybertronians after some fashion. Bumblebee himself had narrowly avoided direct interface with these humans (who only ever approached in hostility) by early detection and slim margins. How, then, could the military _not _be prepared for a Decepticon attack? Perhaps the Decepticon had simply proved too powerful, or perhaps even within the military there were secrets kept from one another. Such a foreign way of thinking: militaristic action on Cybertron had always enjoyed full disclosure, and certainly it was foolish for the right cohort to not know what the left cohort was doing! But humans were full of contradictions, their logic processors sorely lacking in comparison to a Cybertronian. Bumblebee dismissed the illogic as a human error of judgment, or possibly an informational error not unlike that of the widespread Autobots, who did not and could not know if their comrades survived or what they were doing.

Still, Bumblebee wished he knew if any information the Decepticons had obtained would lead them, one and all, to Samuel Witwicky's doorstep. If so, hopefully not within the next three Earth days, before Bumblebee had sufficient backup to make some sort of stand.

Bumblebee downloaded and stored the information, picking and choosing choice bits from fifty-one different newspapers to compile into a report for Optimus Prime upon his descent, and added his analysis as a footnote. He also made a contingent plan in case of a mass Decepticon attack: take the boy and the glasses and flee. It would hardly be the kindest introduction to make to the boy, but lacking choices, Bumblebee would do what was necessary to ensure Sam's continued spark … er, life.

But in the odd way humans had, even in light of a dawning war that their leaders were aware of (even if they were not aware of its true nature), the little town of Tranquility carried on normally. Sam Witwicky woke up the morning that his genealogy project was due late and spent the morning scrambling around his room in an effort to find what he needed. Bumblebee very, very briefly detected the EM-branded glasses (he was not even entirely certain he felt them). Sam's father departed for work; Sam departed for school, and Bumblebee followed, out of sight but not out of sensor range. Bumblebee then spent most of the morning as he had the day before, parked a block from the school on the side of the road.

A law enforcement officer appeared at one point, looking Bumblebee over with the terse manner of a human annoyed or hurried. For a bit Bumblebee feared he had somehow been detected as not-a-car; the officer clucked her tongue, pulled out a pad of paper, uncapped a pen with her teeth, and scribbled something, the cap still trapped in her jaw. When she had finished, she tore off a single sheet of the paper and trapped it against Bumblebee's windshield, under his windshield wipers.

_Ah. _Bumblebee recognized the slip of paper after a beat. He had received such things periodically, coming online from a recharge; the first time he had been nonplussed, but a quick scan of the paper had given him information to take to the Internet. A parking violation, then. Humans had funny rules about where their vehicles could be put aside. It seemed this time he was too close to a fire hydrant.

When the law officer had departed and the otherwise quiet road was silent again, Bumblebee lifted his wipers to let the breeze carry the paper away, started his engine, and backed up exactly the seventeen point two feet he needed to clear the requirements. There was a monetary punishment for those violations, but Bumblebee doubted the humans would much appreciate it if he showed up in bipedal form to pay, even if he had the sort of money they wanted.

Bumblebee was too far from the school to detect Sam or the eyeglasses directly, but the school grounds remained blessedly clear of Cybertronian signatures. When school let out at 2:05 PM, the Autobot pulled out and started for the bus bay, scanning the exiting students for a familiar face. However, he stopped short when the first familiar face he scanned was that of Ron Witwicky sitting in his familiar convertible.

Bumblebee hurriedly parked himself as Sam ran from the school building, whooping with joy. "Yes!" he exclaimed just as Bumblebee tuned his audio receivers to the Witwicky car. He began throwing various bags and papers into the backseat.

"So?" his father asked expectantly, hardly moving in answer to his son's jerky, excited movements.

"I got an 'A'!" Sam exclaimed, climbing into the passenger seat. He shoved a sheaf of papers in front of his father's face. "It's an A minus, but it's still an A," he clarified.

"Wait wait wait, I can't see," Mr. Wiwicky protested; Sam held the paper out for him at a more reasonable distance for Ronald's optics to focus, and he nodded. "All right. Congratulations, son. You're getting your first car."

"_Yes!_" Sam pumped his fist into the air in exultation. His father piloted the car out of its space and began to drive down the road. Bumblebee followed at a distance.

Less than five minutes of driving later the Witwicky car was in the commercial district of Tranquility, littered with restaurants, car lots, and strip malls. (It had taken a little while to get the hang of that last phrase, since the most common colloquial use of 'strip' on the Internet referred to the removal of one's clothing, not a line of storefronts.) Sam's father drove through the car lot of one brand seller, making a joke that he found hilarious but abruptly turned Sam's enthusiasm into a hunched form radiating irritation. Bumblebee did not attempt to decipher it. Human jokes could be as cruel as Cybertronian ones. Ronald then proceeded to cross the road and turn into another car lot bearing a sign: 'AUTO SALES Boliva's Finest Quality Select USED CARS'. Surveying the so-called quality of the cars as Bumblebee passed the parking Wiwicky's, Bumblebee doubted very much that the merchandise would travel more than fifty miles without dropping their engines onto their front axles. It was one thing to trust Sam Witwicky to his father's highly exposing convertible and to the unwieldy busses, but this?

On the other hand, Bumblebee realized he was being presented with a unique opportunity here. He quickly assessed his exterior, calling back up the details of the car he had scanned four years previous and adding in the visible damage he had been unable to repair for himself. _I fit in well here._

Bumblebee confidently pulled himself in to park next to a Volkswagen Beetle and turned off his engine, settling on his chassis, and prepared to make certain that Samuel Witwicky would drive away with a yellow and black '76 Chevrolet Camaro.

Sam was arguing incessantly with his father, sounding incensed. He was more concerned with the appearance of the cars than with their interior quality. The owner of the lot (presumably Bolivia), a dark-skinned man around Ronald's age with a fake laugh, changed subjects often and half-followed, half-led Sam around the lot in a friendly manner that Bumblebee couldn't fully read. He finally drew near to Bumblebee and walked around to his rear chassis, resting his hands on Bumblebee's trunk. "… Any piece of car a man might want or need," he declared.

"This ain't bad," Sam commented, running his hand over Bumblebee's hood.

For no particular reason that his logic program could explain, Bumblebee experienced a surge of affection for the boy beyond his ownership of the critical eyeglasses. He had thought to find a way to ensure his purchase, but it seemed it might not even come to that!

"It's got racing stripes," Sam added, his tone neutral, but at this distance even Bumblebee, who was not specifically designed for biological assessment, could sense the slight heart rate pickup. Bumblebee hastily shifted the driver's seat minutely back and up to a better fit for Sam's legs and height.

"Yeah, it's got racing—yeah, what is this?" Bolivia's voice suddenly turned confused. "What the heck is this? I dunno nothin' about this car. Manny!" He suddenly raised his voice, speaking to someone on the other side of the lot. "What is this? This car, check it out!"

Meanwhile, Sam opened Bumblebee's door and slid into the driver's seat. His weight settled comfortably, but the Autobot noted he was slightly heavier than Bumblebee had expected. "Feels good," Sam muttered to himself, resting his hands on the steering wheel.

Bumblebee felt good, too – good about his chances of becoming the chosen vehicle. He couldn't see Sam while the boy sat inside him, but even without seeing his face the way Sam's body relaxed within him seemed like a good sign. Guarding Sam in this fashion would be much simpler. Above his hood Sam's father and Bolivia were discussing Bumblebee's worth, however, and that would be the ultimate deciding factor. "—The custom paint job," Bolivia noted as one of Bumblebee's assets.

Sam abruptly re-entered the conversation. "Yeah, but the paint's faded," he pointed out hastily.

So it was, Bumblebee noted. It worked well for the lot he was sitting in, but visible rust was the sort of thing Ratchet would take his cerebral processors off for, even if it were only superficial corrosive damage to his armor. Was this jeopardizing Sam's opinion of him?

"Yeah, but it's custom," Bolivia protested, leaning his forearms on Bumblebee's car door.

"It's custom _faded_?" Sam demanded.

Belatedly Bumblebee realized Sam was trying to haggle the unnamed price. Sam's heart rate had picked up again.

"Well, it's your first car; I wouldn't expect you to understand," Bolivia said in a flat tone, dropping all pretense of friendliness. "Five grand," he said to Sam's father, standing again.

"No, I'm not paying over four. Sorry," Ronald answered, shaking his head slightly.

_Uh oh._

Bolivia immediately leaned down, slapping his hand on the inside of Bumblebee's door, which sent a brief uncomfortable buzz up his sensors. "Kid, come on, get out of the car," he said.

Sam tensed. "No, no, no. You said cars pick their drivers," he protested.

Sam had chosen _him. _Bumblebee preened a little, although given his competition there had hardly been a chance otherwise. _Boy, I do not know you that well, but if I had to choose a driver I believe I might choose you, myself_. Nonetheless, the father had the final say and that say was currently in the negative, and Bolivia, unwilling to come down on his price for a car that would drive out of his lot whether it had been sold or not, had turned vaguely hostile. "Well, sometimes they pick a driver with a cheap-ass father. Out the car."

Sam let out a sigh laden with emotion, the human equivalent of cycling vents. He opened the door and hesitated, his weight settling a second time as he gripped Bumblebee's wheel harder with one hand, before he finally climbed out of Bumblebee.

Bolivia had already moved on to describing the Beetle Bumblebee was parked next to, which was apparently worth the required 'four grand'. Beside his open door Ronald was suggesting another car with racing stripes, but Sam, his voice full of frustration, gave an indignant reply.

"This is a classic engine right here," Bolivia called, seating himself in the Volkswagen. At the same time, Sam stepped clear of Bumblebee's door and slammed it shut.

Bumblebee swung his passenger side door open just as his driver's side door shut; surely to any human it would have appeared to be cause-and-effect on an old car. He struck the Volkswagen with enough force to set off its horn, heavily dent the door, and knock it aside a couple of feet. _I barely touched it! _He thought incredulously of the damage. _Something that light couldn't possibly protect a human! I wouldn't pay two credits for such slag._

More importantly, it rendered his immediate competition un-sellable. Sam frowned, then ducked down to look through Bumblebee's open windows as though the new perspective would tell him something. Sam's father started around Bumblebee's trunk, expressing concern for Bolivia; Bumblebee assessed the man to be physically fine with a quick scan.

Bolivia was not one to be put down so easily, though. He called for someone to bang out the damage done to the Volkswagen, laughing again; he climbed out of the passenger side door of the Beetle to cross the parking lot, beginning to point out other options. Clearly, unless Bumblebee intended to spend the rest of the afternoon finding ways to disable all the other used cars in the lot one by one, something had to be done immediately.

Bumblebee flipped on his radio, tuning in static and hertz inaudible to the human ear, and isolated a high pitch resonance. It was the work of moments to amplify the sound and blast it across the used car lot.

None of the humans likely heard anything more than a brief, high-pitched whine and the buzz of static. What they saw, however, was much more dramatic as every window of every car in the lot abruptly shattered, spraying glass everywhere. The humans ducked the small projectiles and Bumblebee remembered belatedly that human skin was easy to harm; he hoped he hadn't caused any inadvertent damage.

Bolivia slowly stood from where he was crouched on his knees, staring at his ruined merchandise with his heart pounding in his chest. Everyone's heart rates were elevated, Bumblebee realized: fear of unexplained phenomena. Sam glanced around as if he was looking for the master of the trick, not knowing it was right in front of him; his father stared, his mouth agape.

And there sat Bumblebee, the only undamaged vehicle in Bolivia's lot. Bumblebee felt slightly guilty satisfaction. "Four thousand!" Bolivia cried, holding out four fingers and breathing harshly. Perhaps it was just an apologetic kindness to let Bolivia claim money for a Camaro that wasn't his to sell.

Sam looked up with alacrity. "What-what, really?" he asked, his voice breathless. "You mean it?"

"If it will get that car off my lot, I'll take it!" Bolivia declared, staring at Bumblebee with wide eyes. "'Sides, I don't 'xactly have anything else to sell, now, do I?" He laughed again, but this time the sound was hysterical.

Sam's father had moved to stand very near his son, his hand squeezing Sam's shoulder. "You know," he said in a low voice, "maybe we should go somewhere else."

"What?" Sam looked up at his father. "No, Dad, this is fine. This – this car is fine. I want it – it's four thousand dollars and I want it, so let's get it!"

Ronald shook his head, but it didn't seem to be a negative answer from Sam's lack of reaction. Bumblebee waited expectantly, unsure of how to read the father's sudden reluctance despite the agreeable price. Finally Ronald shrugged and clapped his son's shoulder with a sigh. "All right," he said in a resigned tone. "All right. We'll take the Camaro."

"All right," Bolivia said, his voice flat, all his previous energy gone. "Shake on it, my man."

The two older humans took each other's hands firmly while Sam stood by Bumblebee and mumbled under his breath in a strained voice, "Yes, yes, _yes!_" He opened Bumblebee's door and again sat in the driver's seat, his hands stroking the steering wheel as his weight shifted to and fro, apparently visually assessing the entirety of Bumblebee's interior. "This is so awesome. I can't believe this is going to be – this is my car."

If alt-modes had allowed for faceplate expression, Bumblebee would have smiled.

&

It was a slightly unreal sensation to give Sam control of his steering, even knowing he could override at any time should it be necessary. Sam guided him with a slightly rough hand, pumped his gas too hard, and sometimes braked unexpectedly, but he improved over distance, muttering to himself. "Woah – brakes are good. Gas is a little jumpy, huh. Guess it would be cooler to drive a manual, but this car is pretty sweet. Yeah."

Bumblebee supposed he qualified as the 'sweet ride' Sam had craved. Considering the condition of the car Bumblebee had selected his alt-mode from, he doubted Sam's requirements rose much above a good looking exterior and serviceable parts, although Bumblebee had picked the 'custom paint job' because it pleased his own optics as well.

More surreal was being unsure where he was going. It was one thing to wander the cosmos almost aimlessly with the company of his team, but another thing entirely to be guided along asphalt streets by an alien being. Sam was following his father's car, but they were not headed back to the Witwicky residence: instead, after a short while, they pulled into a gasoline station. Bumblebee prepared to be parked to the side while Sam's father filled his car, but no – Sam was pulling him abreast of a filling station.

_Oh—oh no. _Bumblebee had not anticipated this, and he clicked quietly in dismay. He rapidly accessed the Internet and downloaded relevant information about automobile fuel even as Sam put him in park and opened the door. "Thanks for paying for the fill-up, Dad," Sam called as his father approached from his own parked car.

"Don't mention it. Can't believe that con-man left it on empty," Ron muttered to himself as he accessed the filling station's computerized system, which would make fuel dispense.

_Empty?_ Bumblebee's energon cycling system was just shy of fully pressurized. Why did the humans assume he didn't have any fuel …?

Bumblebee, like all Cybertronians, operated on energon – a highly combustible liquid that, when in its refined state, could be recycled from gaseous to liquid to gaseous almost indefinitely within an enclosed system. While a Cybertronian energon converter ran not unlike a carburetor in a human's car, the properties of energon allowed them to produce almost no byproduct except entropic heat, and energon could be recycled into the system well over a hundred million times before the integrity of the energon was decreased enough to require replacement. Bumblebee was nowhere near due for an energon change – four years on Earth was enough to require lubrication cycling, not fuel, and he had not received enough damage at any point to lose a depressurizing amount of energon. But depending on the qualities of gasoline, Bumblebee could process and convert the fuel to a usable energon alternative.

Sam was prying at his fueling site. Bumblebee locked it closed and rapidly processed the downloaded information, running a diagnostic program based on the molecular makeup of petroleum mixed with ethanol. The return result was positive – barely. Bumblebee would have grimaced in protoform upon seeing the sheer amount of byproduct produced just by _converting _the inefficient fuel. The ethanol was utterly useless except as a subtle corrosive. He would have to jettison it as soon as it was cycled out of the gasoline mix.

"Hey, what gives?" Sam muttered, trying to work his fingers into the hatch. "Dad, the car's gas thingie, it's—" Bumblebee unlocked the hatch, resigning himself to ingesting what would amount to, from a human's perspective, a meal of lawn grass. Sam stumbled as the hatch popped open with sudden ease. "Uh, never mind," he finished in a lower voice. "How much should I put in?"

Ronald leaned his weight along Bumblebee's side, his arm stretched over the Camaro's hood and his knuckles rapping the metal. "Cars this old, they don't have auto fuel shutoff," he said. "Put in twenty dollars' worth and see where the needle sits after that. It's probably got a 15-gallon tank, but you don't want to overfill it."

_The … needle? _Bumblebee had a lot of needles on his dashboard, most of them meaningless to him since he had no driver who required the information. He felt Sam insert the metal injector and initiate the flow of petroleum gasoline as he assessed which needle Sam's father was talking about. _Ah, the one with an 'E' at one end of the display and an 'F' at the other? They must indicate 'Empty' and 'Full' gasoline tanks! _Bumblebee hastily flipped the needle straight over to 'F' before thinking that might be suspicious and moved the needle back to a middling position. Or perhaps they would add more gas after checking where his needle was? Bumblebee didn't want to deal with any more of the petroleum than he had to. He put the needle back at 'F' and diverted the fuel to the secondary conversion lines. At the very least, after conversion the fuel could bring his energon pressurization up to full strength again.

Sam shut the fuel dispenser off and removed the injector. "All right. Lessee …" he climbed back into Bumblebee and leaned forward. "Hey, Dad, it says it's full."

"What, really?" Ronald bent down and stuck his head and shoulders into the Camaro. "Huh. Start the engine." Sam did so. Bumblebee's energon converter started up smoothly, and under the rumbling sound he powered up the secondary converter. "Huh. The needle must be broken. Great." Mr. Witwicky leaned back out of the not-a-car and sighed. "You'll need to get that fixed soon."

"How am I going to afford _that_," Sam demanded, bumping the heel of his hand against the Autobot's steering wheel.

"Get a summer job," his father shot back. "I'll let you pay me back for the repair 'cause it's important, but you _will _pay me back. In the meantime, be careful, fill her up often." Ronald slapped his hand on Bumblebee's hood as he straightened up. "I'm going home. You got any homework?"

"No," Sam said sullenly, his grip tight on the wheel.

"Good. Go enjoy your car. Come home in time for dinner, okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay." Sam's father walked away.

Sam let out another sigh. "Shoot," he grumbled, pressing down on Bumblebee's brake and shifting into drive. But he let out a brief chuckle half a minute later. "Dude, I've got a _car_," he crowed triumphantly, laughing and pulling Bumblebee into traffic.

Sam was a fairly safe driver as humans with their imperfect optics and sensory systems went. Bumblebee made only minor adjustments as he struggled to seamlessly work with Sam's driving style. He didn't want Sam to feel disappointed with his purchase, especially since chances were very high that he would be disabused about his 'car' within the next several solar days. _It would help if he were endeared to me._

It would help even more if Bumblebee could have carted Sam away to a safe place and explained everything – why Sam's safety was imperative, why the eyeglasses were desperately important, and what and who he and the other Autobots were before they made landfall. Sentient creatures that had grown used to the machines that Cybertronians masqueraded as usually had initially adverse reactions to their appearances, but as reasoning creatures, they would grow to accept the reality in front of them. As humans said, 'seeing is believing'.

But 'seeing' was only half the battle, and Bumblebee could not provide the second half – explanations and conversation. He would merely scare Sam off.

Sam drove around Tranquility aimlessly for twenty-seven minutes, his elbow hanging out of Bumblebee's door. He didn't seem to notice when Bumblebee flipped on his radio and selected a local station playing some 'alternative rock', as the music style was called; he started it quietly and increased the volume incrementally, noting how the relatively slow-paced song seemed to relax Sam's posture as he tapped his fingers on the car door in time with the rhythm. By the time Sam pulled Bumblebee into his driveway he was smiling and fully relaxed. He put Bumblebee into park, removed his (had he but known it) useless ignition key and climbed free. His father was walking out the door, putting on a pair of protective gloves covered with soil and wearing a boonie. "Dad! Dad, I don't think I said thank you," Sam exclaimed, "between th-th-the exploding car windows and the stuff, and you know."

"You said thanks," Ronald corrected Sam right over Sam's rambling explanation. Sam had, in fact, said 'thanks' and 'thank you' eight times at Bolivia's lot, by Bumblebee's logs.

Sam barely seemed to hear him. "So, thanks," he said, shifting on his feet. "Uh, yeah, this – I mean, this is awesome."

"Hey, you earned it," Ronald said. "Now when are you going to wash that thing? Looks like it hasn't been cleaned in months."

Point in fact, Bumblebee had not polished his own armor plating since the saltwater, corrosive air in southern Florida had forced him to. There wasn't much place for vanity during deep undercover missions.

"I'll do it on Saturday, Dad," Sam called. "Hey, where's my stuff?"

"Your school bag is on the counter," Sam's mother said from somewhere in the house before she too exited the home.

"Can I go see Miles? I mean, can I go pick up Miles in my awesome new _bitchin' Camaro!?_" Sam shouted.

_There's a song with that title, _Bumblebee thought.

"Language!" Judy Witwicky shouted.

"Sorry. Can I, Mom?"

"As long as your homework is done."

"Yeah- yeah, it's done. Great!" Sam's feet pounded up the stairs.

Bumblebee located the song Bitchin' Camaro off of a visual-audio clip website called Youtube and replayed the song quietly over his speakers. He had to purposely shut off his vents for a moment to prevent his laughter from being audible to the humans as anything more than clicks from his abused, broken voice. _It's fairly appropriate! If I am, indeed, to be considered 'bitchin'. _In colloquial language the adjective was both demeaning and positive, after all.

He pretended to not notice the stares of Sam's parents as his radio played in their presence very well. After all, he was just a Chevrolet Camaro worth only four thousand dollars.

_Tbc_

_Thank you to all reviewers once again: Geekgirl (I hope I have succeeded), whitedino (This is shameless Autobot worship; nobody would EVER publish this kind of wish fulfillment ;) But I'm glad you consider my work so professional), and Hellfirefanatic (Thank you for your kind comments! Writing action is fun)._

_I hope you enjoyed. Please review!_


	4. Who's Going to Drive You Home?

**Chapter 3: Who's Going To Drive You Home?**

Sam called his friend Miles while he was in the house; Ron continued to work up his lawn grass in a slightly winding direction towards his house, replacing the grass with slabs of stone. The lawn's layout seemed to please Judy, although Bumblebee couldn't see the beauty of it except in an abstract way – the geometric shapes of the flower petals and the pleasing juxtaposition of colors. The entire layout was too haphazard to his optics.

He checked the Ebay page advertising Archibald Witwicky's glasses to find no bids. Sam apparently did the same a few minutes later since he made a frustrated sound. "Great. Still broke."

When Sam ran out of the house and began to cross the grass to Bumblebee, his father admonished Sam for walking on the lawn instead of the nearly complete pathway of stone; Sam complained about Mojo being forced to wear 'girl jewelry', which Judy declared to be his 'bling', whatever that was.

Human stock in pleasing appearance extended far beyond propagation of their race, Bumblebee noted. They liked _everything _to be beautiful, which sometimes came in secondary to function. For instance, earrings: humans inflicted permanent (although minor) damage to their skin, most often their ears and nose, to hang bangles from them. The function of the ears and nose were not enhanced in any way by these bangles – they simply pleased the human eye. Cybertronians took pride in their appearances, it was true, and picked alt-modes that pleased them as well as fit their topology requirements, but to physically alter oneself in a potentially detrimental manner – that was unheard of.

"I'm gonna go get Miles," Sam said.

"You're not staying for dinner?" Judy asked, clutching a bouquet of tiny lavender flowers.

"We'll pick something up," Sam promised, opening Bumblebee's car door.

"All right, then," his mother said doubtfully. "I want you home at eleven o'clock!"

"Yeah, okay," Sam said in a tone that made Bumblebee wonder if he was processing what his audio sensors were picking up.

"Eleven o'clock!" Ron parroted as Sam started the Camaro's engine.

As the secondary converter came online with the energon converter, Bumblebee noted the conversion process was 78.8 percent done. He shunted the useless ethanol to his waste tank to be jettisoned and released the remaining byproduct through his exhaust pipe, producing a sudden, massive cloud of visible smoke. _Oops._

Sam buckled the self-restraint straps (seatbelt, the Internet informed him) and guided Bumblebee out of the driveway, heedless of the sudden expulsion. Bumblebee didn't know how Sam couldn't smell the sulfur, but the boy's hands remained steady on the wheel as he turned the Camaro out onto the street. "Phew. Hope you don't do that every time you start," Sam commented a few seconds later.

_I won't, _Bumblebee promised automatically, producing a _bzzt-clik _instead of anything resembling real words. _I hope Optimus and the others land before I have to ingest any more petroleum! _The Ark had its own fuel converters, and it was far more practical to use them. Energon was in somewhat short supply these days, so they had to make their own.

Again Bumblebee found himself going to places he didn't know under his own power and Sam's guiding hand; he had no idea where Miles lived. Thankfully, Sam was consistent about signaling turns so Bumblebee had some warning of which way he was going. 1.63 miles later they were pulling into another driveway at a somewhat smaller abode, this one whitewashed and with a quietly well-kept lawn but no flowers.

Sam honked Bumblebee's horn, which startled the not-a-car into rocking slightly before becoming embarrassed by himself. _My own horn! I am going to have to get used to having a driver._

A window opened on the top story of the house and Miles leaned out. "Holy crap you really got a car!"

With his elbow clenched against the outside of Bumblebee's door, Sam leaned out. "Yeah, come on down and check it out!"

Miles ducked out of the window and appeared in the doorway of the house a minute later. "I will, Mom," Miles shouted to an unseen parental unit before slamming the door shut and running towards Bumblebee. Sam shut off the ignition and Bumblebee obediently turned off his converter even as Sam climbed out. "I know it's a little beat up but it only cost four grand," Sam proclaimed proudly. "It's got racing stripes."

"Yeah, sweet," Miles grinned. "What kinda car is it?"

"Some kind of old-school Chevrolet Camaro," Sam shrugged.

Miles stroked his hand over Bumblebee's hood and down the support beside his rear window. "How fast does it go?"

_Roughly 240 miles per hour at a burst, _Bumblebee thought.

"I dunno, man, it's not like I've had a chance to find out. My dad would kill me if I got a ticket the first day I got my own car," Sam pointed out.

Miles leaned down to stick his head into Bumblebee's interior. "Dude, seriously sweet." Then he laughed. "Hey Sam, you gonna listen to Elvis or something?"

"What?" Sam was standing a little off to the side with his arms crossed.

"You have a freaking _8-track _player," Miles snickered. "Your dad give you his collection yet?"

"Yeah, right," Sam scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Come on, get in the car." He proceeded to climb in himself. Bumblebee noticed that his doors were creaking ominously and made note to reroute a hydraulic of oil there at the first opportunity.

"Where're we going?" Miles asked, not bothering to open Bumblebee's door but rather hauling himself up on Bumblebee's hood, jumping, and sliding through the space provided by the open window feet-first. Sam shouted in alarm, and Bumblebee rocked inadvertently as the boys shifted their weight around his interior.

"What is wrong with you, you almost kicked me!" Sam demanded as Miles got himself settled (finally) in the passenger seat.

"Sorry, man." Miles did not sound very sorry. "So, seriously, where are we going?"

Sam sighed and started the Camaro's engine again. "First we're gonna go get some thing to eat."

"Taco Hell?" Miles asked hopefully despite the derogative misnomer for the 'fast food' restaurant.

"Yeah, sure," Sam shrugged. "And then we're going to a party at the lake."

"You mean where the jocks and their concubines hang out?" Miles sounded doubtful. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure," Sam answered, but he swallowed hard and his heartbeat elevated a little. He put Bumblebee into reverse and began to back out of the driveway.

Bumblebee wondered what interest Sam had in the lake, the apparent sports-oriented students (jocks) and the women Miles claimed they copulated with out of wedlock (the definition of 'concubine', if Bumblebee was understanding things correctly). He recalled that Miles had before referred to the woman Sam seemed interested in, Mikaela, as the 'jock concubine'. _Oh … _In realization Bumblebee chirruped, but the sound was inaudible under his converter. _Sam believes that owning me will somehow make him more attractive to the female._

Well, why wouldn't it? Judging from what Bumblebee had researched on the Internet worldly possessions, as a representative of wealth, was a factor in choosing a mate. Of course, other factors included interpersonal relations, physical attractiveness, et cetera – mostly things that Bumblebee was not capable of judging for himself. His logic processors could tell him what colors and geometric shapes pleased his optics, but he could not begin to fathom what would cause an organic being to pick one mate over another. Abruptly Bumblebee was very, very curious.

But the first stop was Taco Bell, a chain restaurant that produced food at low prices with great speed. Humans preferred to have a variety of flavors and required a variety of nutrients to remain at full health, but since organics were constantly doing things, rushing from one place to another, they also often wanted their food at great convenience. Taco Bell, McDonalds, and a number of other 'fast food' places met the speed and price requirement. Bumblebee did not know if they provided a good selection of nutrients in their food, but he was aware that the highest quality oils and purest energon on Cybertron had been both expensive and took a long time to produce. Whether there was any equivalency here on Earth, Bumblebee did not know.

(He also was not certain that credits on Cybertron could be quite equated to money on Earth. The system worked with significant differences and Cybertron's economy, so to speak, was more closely related to socialism than capitalism. Bumblebee had never been terribly good at understanding the philosophical arguments over the matter suggesting Cybertron was a gestalt system and the like, and by the time his logic processors might have been able to handle enough empirical data the whole matter had become moot with the oncoming war.)

Sam informed Miles that they were not, under any circumstances, eating in his brand new car, and so Sam parked Bumblebee and they went inside to eat. Bumblebee decided to be grateful. He had seen humans eat and their food left crumbs. It took them about half an hour to return, during which time Bumblebee idled his secondary converter and finished processing the petroleum. As a result when Sam restarted the engine proper the Camaro belched another cloud of sulfur-smelling smoke, which Miles reacted poorly to. "Dude!"

"It does that sometimes," Sam said in a nasal voice. Bumblebee imagined he was pinching his nose shut.

"Doesn't that mean there's something wrong with the carbon thingie or something?" Sam didn't reply, possibly responding with some kind of body language. Miles snorted. "All I'm sayin' is, it's awesome you've got a car and all but this thing is why we have global warming."

"Look, you don't have to ride in it," Sam snapped irritably.

"I'm cool, I'm cool," Miles protested.

.

But Miles and Sam both grew more agitated the closer they got to the lake, shifting their weight around constantly. "Dude, are you sure we're invited to this party?" Miles asked.

"Of course, Miles," Sam stressed. "It's the lake. Public property." He took a hand off the wheel and Bumblebee caught a whiff of mint, not from his air freshener. Sam pulled the Camaro around the winding corner and parked him alongside the road; Bumblebee noted the flat looks from a group of taller muscled boys standing around a sports utility vehicle next to a tree. "Oh my god, dude, Mikaela's here," Sam said, his voice low but his heart rate picking up. "Just don't do anything weird, all right?"

Bumblebee did not sit up on his chassis, doing his best non-sentient car impression, but he attuned all his sensors to the upcoming interaction, filtering out other voices, the wind, and the birds. It was easy to read from Sam's stiff shoulders as he climbed out of Bumblebee's interior and approached the group of males that he was nervous, even if he hadn't spoken: "I'm good, right?"

Miles came to Sam's side and patted him between the shoulder blades. "Yeah, you're good," he promised.

"Okay." Together the two boys started towards the knot of fellow adolescents.

Bumblebee identified Mikaela when she appeared from behind the SUV, the only female in the group. Mikaela wrapped her arms around a blond-haired boy wearing a hat who was several inches taller and broader in the shoulders than Sam. As Sam and Miles drew close, Miles dropped one of his several shirt layers on the ground and began to climb into the tree they stood next to.

The blond boy's face was flat and confident as he stepped out of Mikaela's embrace and approached Sam. "Hey, bro, that car. It's nice," he said. Bumblebee was a little surprised by the proclamation, considering that the boy's body language was subtly aggressive. "So what are you guys doing here?"

Sam glanced at Miles. "We're here to climb this tree."

The boy seemed equal parts confused and mocking. "I see that. It looks … it looks fun." He turned his gaze back on Sam. "Hey, I thought I recognized you. You tried out for the football team last year, didn't you?"

Sam's calves tensed as he almost backpedaled physically, the words somehow a threat or a joke Bumblebee didn't get. "Oh, that? No, no –" Sam laughed nervously – "That wasn't like a real trying. I was researching a book I was writing."

"Oh yeah?" By this point Miles was hanging from his legs out of the lowest branches of the tree. He seemed quite relaxed there. Bumblebee thought of the images of primates he had seen online. "What's it about? Sucking at sports?"

'Sucking', a colloquial term derived from an act of sex involving the oral cavity and male anatomy. It was derogatory. Sports prowess was supposedly a sign of male virility, so this boy was accusing Sam of being impotent because he was not good at sports. Funny how almost all human cruelty could come down to sexual terms.

But Sam barely flinched. He laughed but did not seem to be actually finding the statement humorous. "No. It's about the link between brain damage and football." He paused as the other boy ceased to smile. "It's a good book, your friends will love it. Its got mazes in it, little coloring sections, you know, pop-up pictures … it's a lot of fun."

And Sam came back with an insult to the other boy's intelligence. Bumblebee recalled some of the more spectacular verbal wars between Autobots and Decepticons with some amusement. He also recalled viewing other biological entities, males staking and defending their right to a female. Of course, humans could not be so easily broken down, but it was not dissimilar.

It would have been a lie for Bumblebee to say he was not rooting for his charge.

But Trent responded with an aggressive step forward. "That's funny." The statement was at odds with his body language.

Sam stepped forward too, his head held high, but the female Mikaela stepped between them before Bumblebee could decide whether or not it was prudent or necessary to come to Sam's rescue (he had not, he admitted, expected to need to protect Sam from his fellow humans!) "Okay, okay, you know what? Stop." Mikaela pushed herself against the taller boy. The boy pushed against her briefly, but then he looked away, clearly giving up the fight. Mikaela brushed past him without looking up.

The boy decided to declare victory in a different way: a retreat, but to a place that was clearly exclusive and outside of Sam's social group: "Hey, guys, I know of a party. Let's go. Let's head there." And the group of men started to herd around the SUV once again.

Sam shook his head, clearly frustrated, and started to whisper to Miles furiously. Miles jumped down from the tree and landed, impressively, on his feet, but Bumblebee could not discern Sam's low words until he got closer. "You made me look like an idiot back there. You made us both look like idiots." His body language was easy to read, his lips pursed and his shoulders stiff. He leaned his hips against Bumblebee's hood while Miles dove back into Bumblebee, this time headfirst.

Bumblebee wasn't paying much attention, though. He felt that Sam's attempt to court the female had been something of a disaster, but he watched as she separated herself from the pack of boys with a disdainful walk. Sam, too, was turned to face her.

Something had to be done. Bumblebee was curious and furthermore, it would be a mark of goodwill to help Sam along. Mikaela had clearly separated herself from the alpha males, which meant she was available. Sam merely needed to interact with her, and that would be easy enough to arrange! He flipped on his radio hurriedly, and a voice crooned, "_Who's gonna drive you home …?"_

Miles, slumped in his passenger seat, asked, "What's wrong with your radio?"

But Sam understood immediately what Bumblebee meant. "I'm going to drive her home," he said almost absently.

"What? No, man, she's an evil jock concubine. Let her hitchhike."

Sam didn't move. "She lives 10 miles from here, okay? It's my only chance. You gotta be understanding here, okay?"

_Oho, you know where she lives! _The Autobot was tickled by the revelation. _You have been after her for some time then._

Miles sat up a little. "Okay, put her in the back. I'll be quiet."

Sam sat up. "Did you say 'put her in the _back_'?"

Bumblebee recalled a human saying: 'three is a crowd'. Miles' presence would be detrimental to Sam's chances of significant courting activity.

"I called shotgun!" Miles was indignant. Bumblebee wasn't sure what the protocols between humans were when they were attempting to woo the other sex, but Sam's friend wasn't taking the whole thing well.

"I'm not putting her in the back! You gotta get out of my car," Sam snapped, turning and opening the door.

"That's a party foul!"

"What rules?"

Miles sputtered. "Bros before hoes!"

_What? Brothers before farming implements!?_ Bumblebee was preoccupied with trying to decipher _that _odd statement while Sam argued Miles right out of the Camaro's interior and drove off, leaving the boy stranded on the side of the road. Bumblebee decided that acquiring a mate could probably be likened to a battle, and at times comrades had to be left behind to accomplish an objective. _I hope you come to understand, Miles._

Meanwhile Sam pulled up alongside Mikaela. The Autobot compared her body against that of women generally accepted to be attractive on the Internet – 'supermodels' and 'movie stars' – and found that her proportions were similar. She was a little bit shorter than a supermodel, but her breasts were prominent and well supported; her waist was significantly smaller around than her hips and rear, creating a noticeable curve. She did not seem to have a significantly high body fat ratio. Her hair was very dark and long, hanging around her optics, which were a striking shade of blue, and she dressed in such a manner that it accentuated that which identified her as female.

This was the kind of woman that Sam believed to be worth chasing after. Bumblebee did not entirely see the appeal, but she fit the human archetype. He turned up his radio, still playing the same song to make sure that Mikaela heard.

Sam steered haphazardly, distracted by his effort to keep pace with Mikaela and talk to her at the same time. "Hey, Mikaela! It's Sam. … Witwicky?" he added when she showed no sign or recognition or stopping. "I hope you didn't get stranded or anything."

She looked away. Bumblebee turned down his music to make sure she heard Sam and almost pointedly revved his engine to get her attention but refrained at the last moment.

"You sure?" Sam was persistent. "Look, I was wondering if I could ride you home. I mean, give you a ride home. In my car. To your house."

Mikaela finally came to a stop; Sam opened the door for her and she climbed in. _Initial objective accomplished, _Bumblebee noted, satisfied. _Objective two: win her trust. Articulate your interest._

Sam was mightily distracted by Mikaela sitting right next to him, so Bumblebee had to halfway take his own reins without seeming to. He kept the drive smooth and safe while Sam initiated small conversation. His heartbeat was rapid and he stammered more often than normal. Mikaela, expressed what she found desirable in male attractiveness with self-disgust, paradoxically not pleased with the man who fit her description as Bumblebee understood it (the blond boy at the lake). For some reason Sam started claiming responsibility for aspects of Bumblebee's interior in response. (He wondered if there had been some body language he missed.) On the other hand, she also demonstrated that she had never been aware of Sam before this moment despite apparently near-constant contact for ten years of school (which explained why Sam knew where she lived, perhaps). Her heart rate never picked up and she sighed several times, all signs of disinterest.

When Sam told Mikaela that it was _okay _she had never noticed him, Bumblebee revved his engine in disgust. Sam was getting nowhere on his own; clearly intervention was needed.

He shut off his own ignition, ripped control of the wheel from Sam's hands, and turned himself off the road and into the brush towards a dropoff where one could overlook the whole town of Tranquility. Sam immediately began to panic, his heartbeat skyrocketing and his fingers scrambling at Bumblebee's dashboard as if to somehow stop him. Bumblebee turned up the radio again and much to his pleasure found the slow, electronic tones of another song about love. "_When I get that feeling, I want sexual healing … sexual healing …"_

Sam tried to disclaim Bumblebee's music choice, complaining that the radio was old (it was _analog_ in design, so below anything technological Bumblebee had seen on Cybertron that he'd had to retrograde his circuits to take full advantage of the concept), explaining that he would never try this on her.

And Mikaela sighed. _Again._ Bumblebee couldn't make heads or tails of it. This was 'mood music', wasn't it? Humans used music to improve their moods, right? He had done it to Sam just hours previous! This should have made Mikaela receptive to Sam's interest! He switched songs. "_—knew that I would! I feel good! So good! I got you!"_

Sam stammered that he wasn't 'that kind of friend' although he _could _be that kind of friend except that he wasn't—

"Just pop the hood," Mikaela said in a disinterested tone, climbing out of the Camaro.

"O-okay," Sam stammered. Then he started kicking Bumblebee's dashboard with all the strength his meager human body had to offer. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Bumblebee gave up with a static whine of frustration and apology. _Sorry, Sam. I tried my best. _Humans were obviously more complicated than he'd thought, or Sam was too inept, or Mikaela was just unreceptive. Or Bumblebee didn't understand them at all. The last option was the most likely, he admitted to himself in disgust.

His initial reaction to the idea of having his hood popped was to deny the humans access, but he also didn't want Sam to hurt himself trying to get 'Bee's hood open. Pretending to be a non-sentient car was so far shaping up to cause more manhandling (literally) than Bumblebee had been prepared to deal with. He let Mikaela force his hood wide open and Bumblebee thanked Primus that his energon converter so closely resembled the carburetors of normal cars.

"Wow," Mikaela said. "Nice headers. You've got a high-rise double-pump carburetor. That's pretty impressive, Sam."

_Primus! _Bumblebee barely refrained from honking in both surprise and appreciation at Mikaela's proclamation, identifying on sight the energon injector that helped keep the system under pressure. _One would think she'd seen an energon converter before!_

"Double-pump?" Sam asked, clueless as the Camaro had known he would be.

"It squirts the fuel in so you can go faster," Mikaela explained patiently.

Sam's heart rate was rising, as was his temperature. "Really? I … like to go faster."

"But it looks like your distributor cap is a little loose," she continued, pressing her hand on the cap in question rhythmically.

_It is not! … Is it? _Bumblebee hadn't experienced any troubles with his electrical systems that a systemic problem with the distributor would have caused. _Hmph._ He logged it for Ratchet to check when the medic 'Bot made landfall.

"Yeah? How did you know that?" Sam asked.

Mikaela shifted against Bumblebee's radiator. "Oh, my dad. He was a bit of a grease monkey. He taught me all about this; I could take it all apart, clean it, and put it back together."

"Really? I just, I wouldn't peg you for mechanical."

"Well I don't really broadcast it. Guys don't like it when you know more about cars than they do."

The picture of the female was coming more into focus, and Bumblebee found himself impressed. He liked Sam for no reason other than the boy had chosen him out of a lot of used cars; the girl he began to like for her technical knowledge. _Ratchet will adore her. _Supposing, of course, they ever had reason to meet.

"Especially Trent," she continued. The Camaro assumed she was referring to the blond boy from before. "He hates it."

Sam was leaning on the edge of Bumblebee's engine compartment. "Yeah, no, I'm cool with it. You know, females working on my engine. I actually prefer it."

"You wanna fire it up for me?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, sure. You know, I was thinking. If Trent's such a jerk, why do you hang out with him?" Sam leaned into the car and pumped the ignition, but Bumblebee wanted to know where the conversation would go from here; he didn't let Sam start the converter.

Mikaela pulled away. "You know what? I'm just … I'm gonna walk." She passed by Bumblebee's driver's side, grabbed her bag out of the back, and started back across the brush towards the road.

_Wait. What? No! _The Autobot felt a stab of irritation with himself. She must have been frustrated with his failure to respond to her expertise and given up!

"All right," Sam said after a moment. "W-walking's healthy, right?" But belying his words, he leapt back into the driver's seat. "No, no no nonono! Come on, you gotta work with me, you gotta start for me," he begged Bumblebee, pumping the ignition again.

They were on the same page, but it took several tries for Sam to get Bumblebee started again – mostly because Bumblebee was having trouble starting himself. This was new. _My ignition sparkplug is dirty and it acts up _now!? _Never mind Ratchet, I could take my _own _cerebral processors off for this!_

The converter turned over and Bumblebee immediately began to belt out a song of apology. _"Baby come back! Any kind of fool could see …"_

Mikaela kept walking, even as Sam rushed to push down Bumblebee's hood and get back into the driver's seat. Bumblebee was in reverse almost before Sam's hand touched the gearshift, spinning his tires on dust. "Hey! Hey, wait!" he bellowed. "Wait a second!"

"_There was something, in everything about you! Baby come back! You can blame it all on me! I was wrong, and I just can't live without you!"_

When Sam pulled in front of Mikaela, successfully getting her to come to a halt, Bumblebee realized that she was smiling. Apparently they'd managed to do something right. Somehow. Bumblebee was beginning to see why men on the Internet claimed women were indecipherable.

&

Sam offered to take Mikaela to get something to eat, but the girl turned him down. Their talk was a little easier afterwards; they discussed shared classes at school, mostly. Sam clearly took the long way around, however, because they traveled over thirteen miles to arrive at Mikaela's destination rather than the supposed ten. By the time they pulled up, the setting sun had dipped below the horizon. The road was narrow, the street was not well-lit, and the house was less than two feet away from both its neighbors with a poorly kept exterior.

Bumblebee pondered the offense that had almost ruined the entire outing and came to the conclusion from Mikaela's 3.3 seconds of silence before declaring her decision to leave that something Sam had said offended her. The only thing Bumblebee could identify as offensive was the comment about Trent, the man Mikaela had shown interest in up until she left the pack of males in visible disgust. _What about that comment was offensive? _Bumblebee wondered. _Perhaps she did not like Sam questioning her choice in men? Did she feel that Sam was accusing her of poor judgment?_

"Well, here it is," Sam said.

"Yeah." Mikaela shifted in her seat. "I had fun, so, you know, thanks for … listening."

"Oh, yeah, yeah." Sam was putting up a front of calm, but Bumblebee knew better. Actually, Mikaela's heartbeat was elevated as well.

"You … you think I'm shallow?" she asked abruptly.

_Shallow? _Bumblebee's logic processors took a moment to sort that out to its colloquial meaning: to not see 'below the surface'. Of course humans couldn't literally see beyond another human's skin without the aid of external devices, but it seemed to imply an inability to perceive moral and personal qualities that had nothing to do with physical attractiveness.

It was not his question to answer, but Bumblebee wished desperately that he could somehow communicate to Sam that she was likely asking because of his earlier comment about Trent.

Sam proceeded to confirm his analysis of the question. "I think you're …? No, no. I think there's a lot more … than meets the eye … with you."

_Surely that's a good answer!_ Bumblebee appraised.

"Okay." Mikaela almost audibly mulled that one over. "I'll see you at school." She started to get out of the Camaro.

Sam began to berate himself immediately, rocking in his seat. "That was a stupid line. 'There's more than meets the eye with you', _stupid_," he grumbled.

But Mikaela waved from her front porch before she went inside. Bumblebee wasn't sure if Sam had seen until Sam gave a little chuckle, still rocking in his seat. "Oh, god. Oh my god, I love my car," he nearly panted.

After two turns Bumblebee knew the rest of the route back to the Witwicky house. It was a good thing, too, because Sam was so giddy he was barely in any shape to take them both home.

_To be continued_

_I apologize for this chapter being a little shorter than the others, but there wasn't an easy cutoff other than the end of Sam And Mikaela's Awesome Adventures._

_Thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter:_

_Skittles the Sugar Fairy (I'm glad I made you smile!), __Hellfirefanatic (sometimes I _over_think things so I'm glad the detail is good and not overwhelming. Proud to be your favorite 'Bee fic!), __Geekgirl (Thank you!), a__nd whitedino (yeah, that l'il bot (relatively speaking) is my hands-down favorite. =D)._

_Next up: Sam and Satan's Camaro. More action ahoy!_

_Please review!_


	5. No One Wants You When You Lose

**Chapter 4: No One Wants You (When You Lose)**

Back at the Witwicky home the remainder of the evening was uneventful – for Bumblebee. Sam, on the other hand, got a phone call from Miles, likely because the other boy was still angry about being left behind at the lake.

Sam wouldn't stop talking about Mikaela in answer, or how awesome his Camaro was, much to 'Bee's amusement, especially because no matter how many times he reprocessed the data from the lookout he couldn't make head or tails of Mikaela's smile. _Maybe Ratchet will know, _Bumblebee thought, but realistically he doubted there would be a good opportunity to ask the other Autobot. The rest of the team would be making landfall tomorrow night. The instrument to determine the location of the Allspark was inside the Witwicky house. The Decepticons, with the exception of Hardtop, had not bothered him since the not-Allspark signal despite the Ebay page.

Bumblebee had good instincts. It was part of what made him a good scout, along with his relative size (not so small as to have to become an uncovered vehicle but small enough to fit into relatively small spaces), secondary converter (added during the near complete overhaul of his protoform after Tyger Pax), and inherent interest in indigenous populations. And his instincts were telling him that he was well overdue for a visit from his old friend Barricade. While Bumblebee did not know Barricade as a particularly subtle one, he could be devious, and the two of them had been testing each other's limits for over four solar years. If anyone knew how to lurk just outside of Bumblebee's sensor range, it would be Barricade. With the added incentive of the glasses, it was entirely possible that Barricade was out there and simply waiting for reinforcements.

Taking a moment to check on worldwide developments in light of the Quatar attack, Bumblebee read Secretary Keller's statement: _"We are facing a kind of weaponry and attack that we have not seen the likes of before!"_

_Your first protoform Decepticon besides Megatron? _Bumblebee wondered with no small amount of consternation. _And you cannot have seen _his _weaponry, because if you had this planet would have long been annihilated._

In other news, Air Force One had undergone an emergency landing in Arizona after experiencing a technical malfunction or a breach in security – reports conflicted. The Autobot wasn't entirely certain if he was overriding his logic processors the way Red Alert did from time to time, believing a Decepticon lurked behind every asteroid, but he was 62.5 percent certain that could also be attributed to Decepticons. Specifically, a little cassette called Frenzy, which Bumblebee had thought destroyed a year ago.

Really, the entire Autobot army would have benefited from Soundwave having the spark ripped out of him back on Cybertron. His minibots were the kind of trouble no one needed.

That did explain Barricade's absence, though, if he had been collecting his tiny circuitbreaker. And it wasn't paranoid to assume only a cassette could successfully infiltrate the most well guarded flying fortress in American hands. The objective was likely the same military intelligence as the attack on Quatar had been, since the President was the militaristic head of his country: was it not safe to assume his plane would be uplinked to data on military information about such things as Megatron and the Allspark?

_If only I had the information they had!_ What if the Decepticons already knew the location of the Allspark? Or almost as bad, Megatron? And here sat Bumblebee outside the Witwicky home, just letting them … letting opportunity slip through the hands of the Autobots like a lump of slag? He would never forgive himself: no matter what Prime's orders, the Autobot leader was operating on Bumblebee's assessment of the situation. The blame would rest squarely on Bumblebee's shoulders.

Bumblebee resolved to make an emergency uplink that night. At the very least the rest of his team deserved to know that they might be making landfall to a waking Megatron, a captured Allspark, and a near-hopeless combat situation.

At 3:38 AM, after enjoying a short recharge cycle during which he added the converted petroleum to the main system (he had to go offline briefly; filtering converted fuel into the main system required a drop to low power, feeding energon through the converter without running the conversion process. In human terms, a full energon replacement cycle would take nearly a day) and oiled his doors, Bumblebee slowly brought his processors back up to speed and started himself, backing out of the driveway as quietly as he could for having picked an alt-mode with a useless muffler. At this hour almost all humans were offline.

Except, apparently, Sam Witwicky. Bumblebee nearly jumped right off of his axles when he heard Sam's voice behind him: "Hey! Hey, wait! _That's my car!_"

_He was offline, I was sure of it!_ Under other circumstances it might have been funny that Sam assumed he was being _stolen_, but as it was Bumblebee wasn't sure what to do. He couldn't very well leave Sam out here by himself.

He could hear Sam on his cell phone; it sounded as if he was attempting to report the robbery in progress. _Perhaps the police will show up? _That meant Bumblebee had to be extremely quick about this. On the other hand Bumblebee felt relatively comfortable with the idea of Sam being with the law enforcement officers (provided Barricade was still somewhere in Arizona), if it came to that. Or it could get the local law enforcement looking for Bumblebee, and would that kind of information get back to the military? The Autobot really didn't need the humans that had chased him across Virginia several years ago following him around _now_ when he was grounded with a charge!

_I'll just keep Sam in sensor range and stay out of his optics, _the Camaro decided, busting through a chain fence that led to the junkyard. Luck gave him a boost when he passed the train tracks just in time for a slow-moving freighter to cut Sam's pursuit off, if the trespassing warnings on the fence weren't enough to keep the boy out.

Bumblebee skidded down a half-gravel-but-mostly-dirt path, sending a burst of long-wave chatter in the direction of the Ark – specifically a Cybertronian morse code requesting emergency uplink.

The response came too fast, and it was not precisely what Bumblebee had been hoping for.

_**ALL HAIL MEGATRON!**_

It nearly knocked the scout right off his wheels.

Because Earth technology was largely compatible with Cybertronian tech, Bumblebee had been able to use human satellites to boost his signal out to Mars, where the Ark was hidden. He used encrypted data packages; no Decepticon had successfully hacked them. This wasn't a hack directly to the Autobot uplink; this was a hack on the satellite signals, bouncing Bumblebee's message back before it could reach its destination. _How!? How did the Decepticons manage this?_

It didn't matter: Bumblebee was cut off from all effective long-range communication with his team. Furious, Bumblebee scrubbed the Decepticon message from his data files, screeching to a halt right in front of a radio tower.

He transformed, rising up to his protoform even as he began to reroute power from all nonessential systems to boost his signal outwards; even if he managed an uplink he wouldn't be able to maintain it for more than 4.23 minutes without forcing himself into recharge.

Luckily, he got a hit.

_Bumblebee. _It was Jazz's signal. _We're in individual orbit. You're slaggin' lucky you landed me! What is it?_

_S.O.S., S.O.S, _Bumblebee relayed back. _Decepticons hacked satellite communication STOP. Landfall ASAP, y/n QUERY?_

_What the hell is going on down there, li'l 'bot? _Jazz sounded bewildered.

_Shortwave communication only on landfall STOP. Landfall ASAP, y/n QUERY?_ Although efficient in its own way, Cybertronian morse code only allowed so much timely communication.

_We can move up our timeframe 8 hours at best, 'Bee, _Jazz answered. _Relay your coordinates now. I'm overhead by your last coordinates, so light-radon aid would land us nice._

Bumblebee obediently relayed the information, sending up a signal visible both to the naked human eye and a radon signal. Before the war, spark chamber radon signatures had been considered outdated, unneeded, and the generations of sparklings that would follow Bumblebee would no longer have the location identifier installed into their systems. After the war began, radon signals proved to have several uses: among them, as locator signals for lost or rallying Cybertronians, and tragically as identifiers for protoforms with destroyed sparks.

Hundreds of Cybertronians had gone unidentified due to their lack of a radon signature. It was known only as the Massacre.

The radon signal did not identify friend from foe: they were a unique sequence of isotopes equipped to the individual in an age before there were Autobots or Decepticons. The signal would merely say: A Cybertronian is here. Like a homing beacon, projecting a stream of the isotopes would result in a short-lasting reaction in the air, a mark that the other Autobots could follow on their short burn into the Earth's atmosphere.

_Got it, _Jazz confirmed. _Landfall in 16 hours, and rendezvous in 18. Hang in there, bud._

_Rendezvous in 18 hours confirm STOP. Bumblebee out STOP._ Cutting the signal abruptly, the Autobot folded back down to his alt-form. The communication had lasted 2.81 minutes.

Rebooting non-essential programming took another sixty seconds, bringing online all sensors other than optics and audio, self-repair protocols, subroutine hydraulics, and alt-form system modifications. Bumblebee revved his engine, coaxing a surge of electricity into his capacitors before the surge protector tac program came online; it was dangerous, but the Autobot didn't have a moment to lose. He needed his sensors in particular back up to full strength so he could find Sam again.

_Maybe stunts like that are why my distributor cap is loose, _Bumblebee thought wryly before throwing open his car doors, EM and infrared and audio signals around him coming into sharp focus.

Dogs barking: the junkyard guards, but not from the wall where they were kept chained. Sam, screaming in alarm but thankfully not pain. Bumblebee nearly balded his back tires revving himself forward and to Sam's location anyway.

The junkyard was actually an old train yard; tracks crisscrossed the property, half-buried under landfill. Some of the old structures still stood, including a silo. Bumblebee skidded nearly sideways into said silo, finally laying optics on Sam, who was perched atop a pile of trashcans and boxes, flinging his arms helplessly at the junkyard canines.

But the dogs would not go head to head with the Chevrolet Camaro. Bumblebee's engine roared and he drove a tight circle around Sam, chasing the dogs out of the silo instantly, before he turned his attention back to his human charge. He couldn't hear Sam's heartbeat over his engine and could barely hear what the boy shouted, but Sam moved jerkily and held his hands out, a position of surrender. "You want the car, it's yours!" he shouted in obvious terror, flinging his ignition keys at Bumblebee; they slid off the not-a-car's hood and into the dirt. "Take the keys! I don't want 'em!"

_Sam! Sam, I won't hurt you! _If Sam's voice was barely audible in the echoing silo chamber, Bumblebee's voice was completely swallowed up by roaring converter, a pathetic series of single-tones and clicks. Sam's words suggested he still thought Bumblebee had been stolen, even though the Autobot was clearly displaying his driverless seat to Sam, but Bumblebee had a worse suspicion: Sam had seen him in protoform. It was the only likely reason Bumblebee could come up with for why a boy who had bravely followed his presumably stolen car across town on a self-powered bike was suddenly so terror-ridden.

This might have been okay if it was _anyone _else – someone who could explain themselves – but no, it had to be _him, _the _only _mute Autobot in the solar system. _Slag it!_

Sam leapt off the pile of boxes, finding it insufficient cover from his new car, and pelted out of the silo. Bumblebee rolled forward to follow him before his optics fell on the car just outside the silo.

_Barricade! He's not in Arizona after all!_ Bumblebee automatically hit the brakes for a surprised moment before berating himself for his own hesitation: Sam was out there! Then two policemen climbed out of the police car Bumblebee had assumed to be Barricade. _Or … not?_ Barricade would never have suffered humans to ride in his interior for any reason: they were normal police officers.

"Oh, man, thank – th-thank goodness you're here," Sam stammered, out of breath. "My car, my car just—"

"Hands on your head! _Hands on your head!"_

Sam started to protest; Bumblebee idled his engine as quietly as it would go, confused. Surely the police were responding to Sam's earlier report of a stolen car? _Or perhaps just to signs of trespassing, _Bumblebee thought, remembering the chain link fence before the train tracks.

"Head on the hood!" There was a gentle _thunk_ as Sam's forehead hit the hood of the police car, and one of the officers came forward to trap Sam's hands behind his back with a short chain (handcuffs).

Bumblebee cycled through options furiously: scare off the police? No: as a first (second?) impression on the boy as a self-driving car, it could irreparably damage any chances of later trust. Produce a false-code on their radios to give them more immediate business? A legitimate possibility, if Bumblebee could talk! In the end, nothing occurred to him quickly enough to save Sam from his fate; the boy was pushed into the back seat of the cruiser and driven off.

When the cruiser was gone, Bumblebee took a moment to retrieve his keys, useless glinting metal sitting forlorn in the dust with Sam's disownment.

A few minutes later the Autobot rolled out of the silo, following at a distance, sheer distress creating a static buzz on his audio sensors.

&

Sam's parents arrived at the police precinct where Sam was in custody at daybreak. Bumblebee, well out of sight and out of audio range, spent several hours uselessly searching the Internet for information about police procedures, arrests, and interrogation methods; what he found distressed him. Sam was such a painfully honest human: he was probably telling the officers even now how his car had driven itself to the junkyard, turned out to be a 16.3 foot tall robot, and then chased him around the silo. _Not guilty by reason of mental defect, _the reports would say. They would put Sam in a medical facility for humans with defective cerebral processors – an insane asylum, just as his great-grandfather had been. _Another Witwicky sees giant robots. It must be genetic, _the humans would think, believing that the biological code passed from generation to generation was responsible for what Sam had seen.

_This all could have been averted if I could just _talk_, _Bumblebee thought in frustration. Humans couldn't uplink to each other; Bumblebee had once seen a biological species that could do so, but it hadn't saved them from Decepticon genocide, nor had it allowed Autobots to communicate wordlessly with them. There was a good chance Bumblebee could communicate with Sam via written messages to his cellular phone, but with the Decepticon hack cutting off Bumblebee's access to human satellites he couldn't manage that, either. Besides, he doubted that the humans would let him keep that phone while they kept him in 'custody'. But humans responded better to things they could communicate with. A man with a knife was considered less dangerous than a feral animal because the man could be reasoned with. Right now, to Sam, Bumblebee was an autonomous car that could not be communicated with: an animal. A car that could talk, though – that would mean communication was possible, and thus reasoning was possible.

Bumblebee had wished he could speak before on many occasions. Immediately after that method of communication had been closed to him, Bumblebee had never been more alone. Traditionally every team carried their own unique shortwave encryptions, but that encryption was now unique to Bumblebee, his entire team slagged by their Decepticon captor. Communication had been nearly hopeless. The medic 'bots overseeing his repairs had taken his internal radio offline when Bumblebee tried to force an uplink on them, then powered his entire protoform down for close to an orn as they attempted repairs on his vocal processors.

Bumblebee had long before sworn his allegiance to the Autobot cause by that time, but loyalty had turned to devotion when Optimus Prime himself had shown up at his side and initiated the uplink that would let 'Bee finally communicate his intelligence on Megatron's whereabouts. He had thought his spark would burn itself out with gratitude and awe. But from that time Bumblebee was never again to be left utterly voiceless in the face of his fellows thanks to other methods of communication open to him.

Now, cut off from long-wave chatter to his teammates and unable to communicate with the key player, Sam, Bumblebee felt voiceless again. The word _frustration _didn't really begin to cover it.

Trying to look on the bright side, Bumblebee reasoned that if the Decepticons were following military intelligence it was unlikely they would come after the Witwicky's.

Thank Primus his team would soon make landfall. Four years was barely a blink in a Cybertronian lifespan, but with the Allspark practically at their fingertips Bumblebee wanted everyone at his side. He missed Jazz, always laid back and stylish, and Ironhide, who would send him to the target practice room when he caught 'Bee idling around; he missed Ratchet, who was fun and experimentally inclined when no one was malfunctioning, and Optimus Prime's guidance and firm leadership. Scouting was lonely and difficult work – work that Bumblebee had happily signed and upgraded for – but he was ready for the camaraderie.

The Witwicky family didn't leave the police station until roughly 9 o'clock in the morning. Bumblebee remained well out of sight, taking parallel roads to beat the family back to their neighborhood where he parked around the corner: he didn't want Sam to see him. He doubted Sam was ready to see him ever again, four thousand dollars or no.

He caught a snatch of conversation from the passing car, partially lost in the engine sounds:

"—Get some rest. I gotta go into the office today for—"

"Crazy off—"

"—Trust you over him, Sam. Don't you—"

Sam's parents were offering their son comfort. It had not fully occurred to Bumblebee to worry about the opinion of Sam's creators, but now he realized they too could have had their doubts about Sam, depending on what their son said. Instead they seemed to be supporting him fully, as surely a team as the Ark crew. _They might even defend him from me, if they know. _The thought was at once amusing (if the Autobot had wished them dead they would already be little more than ash) and sobering (but Bumblebee would never hurt them, and thus would be turned away).

_Prime will smooth this over, _Bumblebee promised himself. He didn't know if Prime wanted the boy at all involved in the situation, but Prime commanded respect: no matter how scared Sam was, Optimus would be able to get the boy to see reason, to overcome his fear.

From this distance Bumblebee wasn't able to eavesdrop on the family and he didn't want to risk Sam catching a glimpse of him. He shifted into gear and drove away to begin one of many patrolling circuits around the Witwicky home.

&

Bumblebee identified Ron Witwicky's car half an hour later, headed in the direction of his office; risking a nearer sweep of the home, the Autobot also noted the absence of the family Oldsmobile, the car usually driven by Judy Witwicky. Sam was alone in the house, although the Camaro didn't dare get close enough to find out what exactly Sam was up to.

With the Decepticons actively jamming his radio signals and their newsworthy attempts on the military, it was unrealistic to hope that the entire day would be enemy-free. Still, when Bumblebee landed a visual at 6:08 PM of a familiar Ford Mustang modified police cruiser idling at a stop light, he had to do a second scan to verify. He'd been expecting Barricade for so long that it was almost as though he had summoned the Decepticon to the Witwicky home.

If Barricade saw him the Decepticon gave no indication, even when Bumblebee abruptly cut across two lanes of traffic to swerve into a narrow access road between brick buildings, cutting his engine and raising his own EMS-dampening field. Barricade drove past him 43 seconds later, going in the direction 'Bee had come from.

_Sam!_

Bumblebee didn't bother to tail the other Cybertronian. There was no space to make a U-turn, so the Autobot backed himself into traffic, blaring his car horn and narrowly avoiding three accidents, racing up a parallel road towards the Witwicky house. Ignoring the rules humans imposed on their roads – stop signs, traffic lights, and the like – and with no small thanks to his now relatively thorough knowledge of Tranquility's layout, Bumblebee drove into the yard of Sam's house 5.8 minutes later.

He scanned the house and tuned audio sensors on it: there was the sound of a television, static-y EM signatures of the various appliances, and the distinct whine of a telephone in use. Sam's voice was a little too low to be understood, only heard, but he was clearly present. _Go to Miles' house! _Bumblebee mentally urged. _Anywhere that isn't here!_

Much to his surprise, for a moment Bumblebee thought Sam knew his thoughts. There were crashing sounds, Sam pounding down the stairs – and then bursting through his front door. The Autobot reversed, executed a K-turn that took up some of Ron's well-tended grass, and laid optics on his charge leaping astride a pink self-powered bicycle. "No, no no no no!" the boy shouted, looking over his shoulder at the Camaro, and raced off.

Sam wasn't going to Miles' home: he was running away from Bumblebee.

_Slag it! I'm not the one you should be running from! _Humans did not behave reliably when they were experiencing fear or any kind of biochemical rush through their systems: it reduced their cerebral processor functions and made them operate under rules not dictated by logic. Realistically, Sam was not going to be able to outdistance even a normal car on a bicycle, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try. Unfortunately for Bumblebee, bicycles could go places cars could not, so if Sam realized that and departed the roads things could potentially get a little difficult.

Bumblebee wasn't letting Sam out of his sight regardless. He gave chase, scanning the roads ahead and trying to guess alternative routes Sam could take, trying to figure out how to intercept him – or failing that, at least be present if Barricade happened to find the boy.

But Sam was in a blind panic. Looking over his shoulder as he biked into the commercial district of Tranquility, he didn't even see the curb that stopped the front wheel of the bicycle instantly. Physics pitched Sam forward and over the bike, landing on his back in front of another familiar human face. _Mikaela!?_ Bumblebee stopped short at the curb.

"Sam?" she asked, frowning.

Sam groaned. "Ah, uh … hi," he gasped.

"That was really … uh … that was really awesome," Mikaela said in tones that suggested Sam's 'wipeout' had been anything but. (The Cybertronian equivalent to 'wipeout' meant something very different than the human term referring to spectacular failures to maintain balance or speed on various contraptions: it meant erasure of the hard drive, resulting in something like amnesia or alternatively coma in humans. The level of confusion Bumblebee had suffered for that one made use of the word amusing.)

"Yeah, well, it felt awesome," Sam wheezed, his voice hoarse.

"You okay?" Mikaela asked, leaning over in a concerned manner.

"I'm not okay, no, I'm losing my mind a little bit," Sam shot back. He struggled to his feet and half-stumbled to pick his bike back up. "I'm getting chased by my car right now, gotta go!" And so saying, he straddled the bike again and took off down the sidewalk.

Bumblebee gave chase, helpless to do anything else. Traffic was moving just enough to let him keep pace with Sam's frantic pedaling, and all was well until Sam abruptly swerved into a several-stories-tall parking garage, disappearing from the Autobot's sight. The Camaro cut over a lane in traffic, made a hard right, and took an alternate access road into the garage.

Inadvertently, Sam had chosen the perfect hiding place. Every car battery in the place raised EM signals; the warmth of the day meant that infrared was rendered useless in a space occupied by hundreds of vehicles. Unable to hear or see him, Bumblebee slowly traversed the area. _Perhaps he slipped into the alleyways behind the garage?_

He heard the electronic sirens of a police car just as he turned to leave.

They translated into Cybertronian: _Gotcha!_

There wasn't any time to turn. Bumblebee was swept up into the one-way traffic on the narrow commercial roads, too many cars around to execute an immediate turn back into the parking garage. _No, no! _Sam was alone with Barricade in an enclosed space with no witnesses. Knowing the Decepticon's propensity for terrifying humans out of their wits, Sam wasn't in _entirely _immediate danger but close to it.

The next minute and a half was possibly the most excruciating of Bumblebee's life. He had never hated the _slowness _of the _fragging humans _and their _fragging _vehicles so intensely as he swung around the block to make another go. But the moment he was able to turn back into the garage he went from 10 miles per hour to nearly 70 in 2.2 seconds, guided by the flash of police lights, and squealed into the empty lot beyond the garage.

Sam, dirty and his clothes torn, huddled with Mikaela (when had she gotten there!?) on the ground in the face of a fully transformed Barricade wielding his blades and claws ferociously. The Decepticon had only just registered Bumblebee's presence when, without transforming, the Autobot slammed into Barricade's knees. Overbalanced, the Decepticon stumbled backwards and fell; Bumblebee swung back around, burning rubber on the road, and swung his car door open just in front of the humans. "Get in!" Which came out as _bzztzhong._

Barricade roared with frustration. "Get fragged, Autobot!"

Later Bumblebee would realize how truly amazing it was that Sam was willing; his fear of Bumblebee only minutes before had evaporated, or perhaps simply been pushed back by the more immediate fear of Barricade, who was struggling to his feet even now. "Get in the car," he gasped to Mikaela, even as the female begged to know what was going on. "You gotta trust me, get in the car!"

Sam dove into Bumblebee's driver's side seat and Mikaela fell into the passenger side, their breathing ragged and their hearts both racing. Bumblebee nearly slammed his door shut on Mikaela's leg in his rush, but Sam wasn't objecting: "Go go gogogo!" he chanted, his voice breaking with stress, and Bumblebee snapped himself into gear, downshifted, and accelerated away across the lot.

"I'm going to rip you and your little squishy friends apart!" Barricade screamed. "Bolt by bolt!" And so saying he folded into his alt-mode and made chase.

"_I've changed my face, I've changed my name, but no one wants you when you lose!"_ the radio blared in answer. Bumblebee tore down narrow alleyway access roads, knocking aside trash bins, and fishtailed out into a two-lane behind a series of residential houses. Barricade overshot and drifted right into the chain link fence on the opposite side of the road. Bumblebee liked to tell himself that Barricade made stupid mistakes like that thanks to his music choices.

"What the hell, what the hell, this is so fucked up," Sam was gasping, gripping his seat tightly.

Mikaela on the other hand was close to hysterical for a while. "What is _wrong _with your car's radio!?"

"Its _radio!? _My car is _driving itself!_" Sam's voice was an octave higher than usual.

"This doesn't make any sense. This is crazy. I've gone to crazy land," the female panted. She was trembling so hard Bumblebee could feel it shake his seat. She kept leaning to stick her head out the window and look at Barricade; Bumblebee wished he could tell her to stop it. Some of the alleyways he favored didn't have much in the way of space for delicate human craniums.

Barricade put on an extra burst of speed on a back road and pulled up Bumblebee's side, gently bumping tires with him just enough to scrape 'Bee's armor and make his rear chassis shudder alarmingly. "Give up the human boy!" Barricade screamed, "and I'll spare your life!"

_Get your logic processors reexamined, _Bumblebee thought, digging into another low gear and a burn of energon to pull away again.

"We're gonna die, we're gonna die," Mikaela chanted in terror.

"No, we're not gonna die, we're not gonna die," Sam answered, although he was nearly crawling right out of his seat in terror, one hand braced on the roof and his foot kicking the dashboard. "Trust me, he's a kickass driver."

Bumblebee revved his engine, amused by Sam's sudden declaration of faith. He was feeling relatively collected. This was familiar ground, Barricade chasing and Bumblebee fleeing; for once, Bumblebee even had the home turf advantage of knowing his way around Tranquility. He made shameless use of it, turning blind corners at high speeds, making sudden and unpredictable lane and road changes, and taking advantage of abandoned buildings.

Neither human was a big fan of the latter, shouting about dying as Bumblebee crashed through a window, a pile of old plywood and boxes, and discovered there was no readily available exit. He locked one wheel, spinning around one hundred and eighty degrees to face Barricade; the police car locked its brakes as it aimed to avoid a head-on collision, which would have been equally unkind to both Cybertronians, and Bumblebee cheerfully doubled back past the slagger, escaping the building the same way he had entered.

But the chase couldn't go on forever, and the sun was already dipping below the horizon. Barricade was clearly ready for the marathon run, never getting left more than thirty feet behind, and as loathe as Bumblebee was to admit it, he was more likely to force himself into recharge than the slightly larger Decepticon. The humans had finally fallen silent, alternatively holding their breath and panting for air; Bumblebee wasn't sure how much more of the stress they could handle, their bodies delicate in so many of the ways that counted. It was time for a change in tactics. Bumblebee gained a decent lead on the other Transformer with a burst of speed and swerved into a manmade alcove, backing up until a sturdy building was at his rear bumper; he dimmed his headlights, shut off his ignition, and locked the humans in before they could think themselves safer on their own. Gently applying his dampening field, the Camaro rendered itself virtually invisible.

"We're locked in," Sam gasped. He tried to turn his keys in Bumblebee's starter, but the Autobot ignored him. "The car won't start. At least we ditched the monster, right?"

But he fell silent as Barricade drove past and slowed to a crawl, still flashing his lights.

Usually by this time, traveling in so many unpopulated areas, Barricade would have transformed and leapt on Bumblebee at an opportune moment. The longer the chase carried on, the more Bumblebee realized that Barricade did not want the humans – or more specifically, Sam Witwicky – dead. _He needs Sam as much as we do, _Bumblebee realized, and suddenly relief flooded his circuits. _The Decepticons need the glasses, just as we do, despite everything!_ They were actually a step _ahead _of the Decepticons in the race for the Allspark!

Now if only Barricade would just … pass … by …

But the modified Ford Mustang backed into view again, idling in place. Bumblebee sensed the active scan almost before it passed over him. As much as Barricade was easy to annoy, the other Cybertronian hadn't become a Decepticon spy by accident: his instincts were just as good as Bumblebee's. This wasn't going to work.

Bumblebee switched on his ignition; it took two tries. "H-here we go!" Sam shouted in alarm as the Camaro rapidly accelerated. Barricade instantly reversed; the Camaro avoided his rear bumper by mere inches, racing past as Sam and Mikaela screamed in alarm. And still, Barricade kept on his tail.

_Plan B, _Bumblebee thought. _It would help if I'd thought of one. _But the only option the Autobot could see now was to fight the Decepticon head to head and either waste or incapacitate him. Transforming with the children around would be risky, but it would still be safer than getting chased around until Bumblebee's systems forced him into recharge.

He dove across the bridge and into the depths of the warehouse district.

Neither human had much notification when Bumblebee opened his door and fishtailed around, throwing both of them to the pavement in preparation for transformation. He initiated the sequence; his front axles separated and spread to admit his arms, his doors opened and twisted skywards as they settled to their proper place on his back, and his rear tires were tucked away as his faceplates and helmet armor clicked into place over his cerebral processors and he got from his proverbial knees to his feet.

He was hyper aware of Sam and Mikaela crouched barely a meter from his right foot, and he stood his ground, shifting his weight forward and putting up his fists. Barricade wasn't well powered for distance and the last thing Bumblebee wanted was plasma blasts flying around; he could keep this a hand-to-hand fight.

As the Decepticon roared around the corner, leapt off his front chassis, and transformed in midair, Bumblebee only had time to hope the back of his feet didn't clip the humans before he was bowled off his feet.

Barricade was barely a foot taller than Bumblebee, but he was almost four feet wider across the chest and he was significantly heavier. Bumblebee went down like a stone, his sensors folded down on his back for protection, and rolled under the Decepticon. Barricade planted one foot, dug his claws into the spaces between armor at either side of Bumblebee's chest, and using his greater leverage, he hurled the Autobot thirty feet to his left. "Stay out of the way!"

As if that would happen.

Bumblebee landed on one foot and the opposite hand, catching himself on his other foot by sheer luck when he overbalanced. He took a chance to check on Sam and Mikaela; the humans were half-running, half-staring back at the Decepticon. _Go, go_! Bumblebee mentally urged them, his voice chirruping in a cheerful way that belied both the situation and how much it hurt to make the sound.

"Look, you pathetic voiceless drone, get out of the way or get wasted. My business is with the boy!" Barricade threatened with a weapon Bumblebee did not think he'd had the privilege of laying optics on before: a bladed, spiked weapon on a steel cord. But the Autobot did not stand down, and Barricade snarled. "Fine! It's about time I ripped the spark from your chest!"

At the same time, Frenzy leapt from Barricade's chest cavity, chattering away in rapid Cybertronian. "Hahaha! Leave the humans to me, yes, yes, Frenzy will take care of them! The nasty Autobot can't catch Frenzy! Frenzy will catch the humans!"

_Fragging cassette! _Bumblebee's voice clicked and ground with the desire to voice his frustration, but when he made the mistake of stepping back to attempt to crush the little Decepticon under his heel, Barricade swung his weapon and caught Bee across the head. The Autobot staggered under the blow, his optics showing static for a critical moment. Barricade struck him again, this time with much more force; Bumblebee was flung off his feet, literally spinning through the air and into a transformer of the more traditional human kind. Sparks flew and the Autobot's surge protectors lit up warnings as they absorbed the extra current.

Bumblebee landed on his chest; he somersaulted, taking only enough time to sight the Decepticon before launching himself back at Barricade. The spikes of Barricade's weapon wedged themselves in Bumblebee's chestplates; the Autobot didn't blink, slamming his shoulder under Barricade's chin and grabbing the Decepticon by the arm. He pulled Barricade down, ducked under his arm, and leapt over his back, hauling the Decepticon over his shoulder and throwing him expertly into a flimsy lookout structure of wood.

Unfortunately they were linked together by Barricade's weapon, and Bumblebee staggered down after Barricade; the Mustang grabbed his shoulders, rolling them together down the incline. Barricade slammed Bumblebee bodily against the earth, sitting atop him; Bumblebee dealt a return right cross to Barricade's faceplates, and the Decepticon slammed the Autobot's head down with a tire against his face. The Autobot swung blindly and landed a glancing blow, but the fistfight quickly degenerated into grappling as Barricade tried to force open Bumblebee's chestplates with one clawed hand and Bumblebee pried at the tire covering his optics.

The mad scrabbling might have continued for a while if the earth under them had been sturdier, but as it was it couldn't take the combined weight of the Cybertronians. It crumbled under Bumblebee's back, and as the Autobot slid sideways, Barricade overbalanced. Suddenly provided with leverage, the Camaro kicked free of Barricade's legs and log-rolled down the incline. The Mustang stumbled in the loose earth, and Bumblebee took the advantage once again with a roundhouse kick to the face. Barricade spun halfway around and caught himself on his hands, but wasn't fast enough to evade a second kick to his torso or the uppercut to the chin. The last blow took him clear off his feet and launched him back into another transformer, this one covered with exposed wiring. The Decepticon roared in sudden agony as an uncontrolled, ongoing electrical surge wracked his circuits; Bumblebee stood clear, a little alarmed and not daring to get so close as to let the current jump to him, and within seconds the Decepticon rolled to the left and clear of the wiring. Bumblebee hesitated a moment longer, wary, which proved to be a mistake as Barricade snapped his head up, narrowed his optics, and launched himself back at Bumblebee.

They tumbled head over foot across the incline, gripping each other by armored plates, Barricade's clawed hands and feet slicing through wiring and minor coolant tubes and 'Bee's fingers crushing minor cogs and wheels. Bumblebee scrambled to wrap his legs around Barricade's knees, immobilizing them by locking his own gears, and finally they came to a halt with Bumblebee on top of Barricade. They proceeded to attempt to punch the faceplates off each other for fifteen seconds, but the Decepticon's movements were jerky, halted; the electrical surge had damaged his circuits. The fight ended when Barricade's shoulder locked before he could land a blow, and Bumblebee cracked the Decepticon in the cerebral processors so hard Barricade's eyes dimmed.

_I knew I could beat him in a fight, _Bumblebee thought with no small amount of satisfaction; his cooling vents cycled rapidly to prevent fried extremity circuits.

Barricade stuttered, his body going into stasis lock before Bumblebee's eyes. "P-p-pathetic, losing t-t-to you …"

With Barricade dead to rights, Bumblebee should have wasted the Decepticon. Ironhide wouldn't have hesitated. But Bumblebee was first and foremost a scout, who only one solar day before had been wishing profoundly to know what the Decepticons knew.

He opened a shortwave channel and began to force an uplink on Barricade.

"Wh-what are you d-doing-ing-ing!" Barricade snarled, optics briefly flaring as Bumblebee queried the Decepticon's communications channel; despite undergoing gradual stasis lock, Barricade still started writing code, creating new encryptions to prevent Bumblebee's access. The Autobot managed to get through one, short morse code message before Barricade successfully cut him off: _Uplink and I won't slag you STOP. My word as an Autobot STOP._

Barricade didn't move for a long moment and there was no immediate response to the query. "P-p-pathetic. A-Autobots never break-k-k their word." His faceplates lifted in a smirk, and the uplink query was approved.

_What did you want to know, you mute little scrapheap?_

Bumblebee rolled his optics. _What do you know of the Allspark QUERY?_

_No more than you, I imagine. Protecting those little squishy creatures … I can't believe you let them sit inside you. They smell like their own waste._

_Upload the data from Air Force One or I will consider our bargain unfulfilled STOP._

_A threat like that: would your precious Optimus Prime approve? Fine, as I'd rather not be slagged, what little good it may do you._

The data arrived in a package format; Bumblebee took no risks, leaving the datapak in isolated redundant hardware backup and began to run a virus check on it. Barricade wouldn't have had time to write a sophisticated virus for the package, anyway.

He released Barricade and began to untangle his legs, stepping away from the Decepticon slowly; he brought out his plasma cannon for additional security. It was time to go check up on the humans. _Enjoy stasis lock STOP._

_Enjoy your smelly … UPLINK: DISCONNECT (Error: 1338673.82 SUBJECT OFFLINE) Encryption XSTM3145275_

Bumblebee closed the link before turning away from his fallen enemy, walking up the incline and across the pavement while scanning for Sam and Mikaela. His self-repair systems booted themselves up, taking care of most of the minor damage immediately, but Barricade's foot had knocked a few teeth out of a cog in Bumblebee's hip, the most serious damage of the fight. He favored his right leg automatically with careful, long strides.

He saw the humans as he approached; both were watching him come and shifting their weight back and forth, but there was no sign of Frenzy and both of them seemed to be moving normally with no visible serious bodily fluid leaks. Sam had lost his pants somewhere, dressed only in colorful shorts and his shirt. They were whispering to each other. "—speak robot, because they just had like a giant droid death match," Mikaela hissed even as Sam began to hesitantly approached Bumblebee. Bumblebee put his fists on his hips, trying to look heroic rather than intimidating.

"I think it wants something from me," Sam said in a low voice.

"What!?"

"Well, because the other one was talking about my Ebay page." Which confirmed Bumblebee's suspicion that Barricade had needed Sam alive – needed Sam to bring him the eyeglasses.

Mikaela threw up her hands in defeat. "You are the strangest boy I have ever met!"

Sam raised his voice, now addressing Bumblebee. "Hey, can you talk!?"

Of course that was the first question Sam would ask.

Bumblebee turned up his speakers, tuning into various radio advertisements overlapping each other. "_XM Satellite Radio Digital cable Columbia Broadcasting System …"_

"S-So you talk through the radio?" Sam asked after a brief hesitation.

Bumblebee clapped his hands together, playing back a clip from a comedian show of the whistling, clapping, cheering crowd: _"You're beautiful. You're wonderful, really, just wonderful!_" And really, it was wonderful: it wasn't having his voice back, but Sam was reading his voice clips as perfectly as if the Autobot were using his own vocal processors.

"So last night, what was that? What was it?"

So Sam had seen his bipedal form then. Bumblebee chirruped and pointed to the sky, again rapidly switching stations. "_Message from Starfleet, Captain – Throughout the infinite vastness of space – Angels will rain down from heaven! Halleluiah!" I sent a message to my teammates. We came from a star cluster several million light years away, and now the rest of my team will make landfall tonight._

Bumblebee didn't think Sam would get quite that much out of it. To his surprise, it was Mikaela that answered this time. "Visitors from heaven, what … so – so you're like an alien or something?"

Bumblebee nodded and pointed to her emphatically. "Precisely!" He tried to say, and got '_whazhoong'_ and a sore processor instead.

No harm done, though. Checking his chronometer, Bumblebee noted that the time for his team's landfall was rapidly approaching. Sam – and now Mikaela – were both wrapped up in their galaxy-breaching conflict now: Sam at least would have to speak with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee couldn't leave Mikaela behind. He folded down into his alt-form again with little difficulty, throwing open his passenger side door. _"Any more questions you wanna ask?" _inquired the voice of a famous human actor.

"He wants us to get in the car," Sam whispered.

Mikaela laughed incredulously. "And go _where?_" she asked. Sam, Bumblebee noted, was taking the whole robotic transforming aliens thing a lot better than his 'love interest'.

Sam glanced back at her. "Fifty years from now when you're looking back on your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get into the car?" And he walked laboriously up the incline, pushing Bumblebee's door further open. Mikaela followed momentarily, climbing over Sam to sit on the armrest between the two front seats. _I've earned his trust, _the Autobot thought, relieved and pleased at once.

"_I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,_" Bumblebee played at the humans cheerfully as he shut his door, downshifted, and drove.

_Tbc_

_Song credits go to Shannon Noll (Don't Give Up). The rest of the song is ridiculously inappropriate for Barricade and Bumblebee's relationship (so to speak), so don't bother to look it up. This chapter is a lot longer than any chapter before it, again because there was just no good place to stop._

_This chapter was a struggle to write because of several logistics issues with the movie (one: why is Bumblebee flashing the Autobot symbol on the clouds? What does that accomplish other than looking like the Batman signal? two: why aren't Sam's parents freaking out that Sam thinks his car is a giant robot? And three: Sam states it's 'early' when Bumblebee pulls up in his lawn, but halfway through the Barricade car chase of Awesome, it's night. Did they really get chased for 12 hours straight? Not to mention: why doesn't Bumblebee waste Barricade after beating him into the ground?) I hope this chapter managed to tie everything together (or ignore the issues) well enough for you all. I made up a lot of stuff so if you have any questions/corrections, let me know._

_Morse code was used to send telegrams. They didn't have periods or commas so sentences were short and ended with STOP. Since it's made-up computer Morse code Bumblebee gets the optional endings of QUERY? And EXCLAMATION!, although he didn't use the last one._

_Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter (and there were a lot of you!):_

_Hellfirefanatic (hehe, Bumblebee rocked that scene! Quietly), __Geekgirl (I hope this was interesting enough for you), __Whitedino (Sorry we didn't get to hear Sam say 'Satan's Camaro'! D= ), __Anita H (glad you're enjoying!), __Rena1 (Sticking with the movie relationships as much as I can, but I hope you still enjoy everything! I'm only writing this because I couldn't find a similar story on ff dot net), __Skittles the Sugar Fairy (slang plus Cybertronians = trouble, yes, XD; ), __Sasuke0099 (hope you enjoyed!), _"_Stripperella" (Haha, glad you liked that part! As far as the torture goes, well, you'll see what I have in mind for it), __Kantrix Gabriel (wow, that's a very high compliment! I hope you continue to enjoy!), __Bookworm Gal (I'm glad you think the story is fun!), a__nd doodlekit (I'm hoping to have this story finished by the end of May, or at least before the new movie comes out. Wow, I'm flattered it got recommended to you! Thank you!)._

_Next chapter: Why it's hysterical when Optimus Prime has to hide from your mom._

_Man, you have all spoiled me with awesome, detailed reviews; I love you all!_


	6. Battle Without Honor

**Chapter 5: Battle Without Honor**

Bumblebee booted a topography program and cross-referenced it with GPS as he drove away from the battleground, locating the highest point within thirty miles: Griffith Observatory, 11.34 miles north of the city proper. The Autobot plotted a route there, intending to take the humans along to meet his teammates, and turned towards the road.

"Wait, wait!" Sam gasped suddenly. "My pants, I need my pants!"

"And my bag," Mikaela added.

Bumblebee hesitated, idling for a moment and searching the airwaves for a song to ask where these items had been left. However, Sam read his hesitation correctly. "I-I think they're that way," Sam said.

Sam was probably pointing in the right direction, but Bumblebee couldn't see as Sam was sitting inside him. He inched a few feet to the left. "N-no, the other way," Sam corrected, sounding awkward about it. Bumblebee obediently started to the right. "Um, more behind us?"

"I don't think he can see you pointing," Mikaela said. Her voice trembled slightly.

"… _This compass isn't working; my sail is slowly turning …" _Bumblebee played. The geomagnetic forces of the planet had long worked well for human navigation, and even their current instruments were not as advanced as Bumblebee's internal compass.

"I'm _sorry!_" Sam groaned, not getting it.

Mikaela, though, stuck her head out his window. "Oh." She hesitated for a moment. "If north is that way … Uh, my bag is like south-east of us?"

Playing back another clip of an audience clapping, Bumblebee turned in the indicated direction (as generalized as it was) and drove across the tarmac. Mikaela gave a little alarmed shout from where she was in the driver's seat, drawing up her legs until her feet were braced on the edge of her seat.

"What!?" Sam half-shouted.

"It's just – it's just weird." Mikaela's tone was apologetic. "I just – I almost grabbed the wheel. Th-there it is!"

Bumblebee obediently came to a halt next to the crumpled lump of soft material that Mikaela carried her personal effects in; Sam leapt from his own seat and ran another thirty feet across the gravel, picking up his pants and hopping into them. Once again they both climbed into the car, only this time Mikaela perched awkwardly on the armrest, her hands gripping the seats to either side of her; Bumblebee didn't make an effort to question it, simply turning back towards the road and their destination. They were both very quiet, Bumblebee's engine and their breathing the loudest sounds in 'Bee's interior; the Autobot began to play a wordless, slow-paced and repetitive song, one that he calculated would help calm the humans. Indeed, they relaxed marginally.

At length Mikaela cycled her vents – sighed, Bumblebee corrected himself. "This car's a pretty good driver," she murmured.

Sam made a little sound of agreement. "Why don't you go sit in that seat over there?"

Bumblebee was wondering the same thing and was surprised by her hissed reply: "I'm not gonna sit in that seat; he's driving!" Sam didn't seem to have a problem with sitting in the driver's seat while Bumblebee drove himself. He wondered if she would feel more comfortable with the perception of a human driving, but even if he thought it would be wise to create the illusion, he couldn't; his holotech had long since been disabled in a scrape with Barricade.

Sam would likely be uncomfortable with the presence of Bumblebee's hologram, anyway, as it was specifically designed to resemble an amalgam of movie 'stars', 'supermodels', and 'porn stars' – a summation of a blonde, healthy, physically attractive human female. At least, Sam probably would not appreciate it with his current sexual interest seated next to him.

Bumblebee was also slightly amused by how Mikaela had attached the gendered pronoun 'he/him' to Bumblebee, identifying the Camaro as masculine, especially remembering how Miles had not long ago referred to Bumblebee as a 'she'. Human pronouns were at once very nonspecific and particularly specific in that they identified via the diametric split in their biological functions, but not by sentience, life form, or species. The Autobot did not particularly care which gender the humans chose to identify him by; simply receiving a gendered pronoun was an 'upgrade' from 'it', which referred only to inanimate objects in their language.

Sam cleared his throat. "Maybe you should sit in my lap," he suggested to Mikaela.

"Why?" Mikaela's voice radiated skepticism.

"Well I have the only seat belt here. You know, safety first," Sam explained himself.

Mikaela said nothing for several seconds. "… All right," she sighed, shifting her weight over to Sam's side of the car. The seat belt clicked into place.

"There. Better?" Sam asked.

Mikaela only made a noise in response. Again there was silence other than heavy (but slower) breathing. "You know," she said at length, "that seatbelt thing was a pretty smooth move." Whatever that meant. Or perhaps she was referring to how the helpful advice brought them into close physical contact.

Sam breathed out rhythmically. "Thank you," he mumbled.

"You know what I don't understand?" Mikaela continued. "Why if he's supposed to be this super-advanced robot does he keep turning back into this piece of crap Camaro?"

_What!?_

Coming from the woman who had looked appreciatively under his hood, Bumblebee was a little appalled. His exterior might have not been much to look at, but he didn't benefit much from sleek appearances when he was supposed to be undercover!

On the other hand, Bumblebee remembered how Sam had reflected negatively on his 'custom-faded' paint job (which, incidentally, was mostly custom indeed), and the scout briefly thought of Jazz, whom he would be seeing in a few hours – an Autobot who always picked the sleekest alt-forms and would probably share Mikaela's opinion of his current look.

_You want stylish? _Bumblebee thought archly. He screeched to a halt, heedless of approaching traffic in the tunnel, and refused to advance until Sam began to climb out of the car. If there was a safer place to leave Sam for less than a minute, he didn't know of it, although the Autobot acknowledged he was acting a bit like a sparkling.

"Woah!" Sam complained loudly, pushing Mikaela off him and climbing out himself. "Now that doesn't work. Now – see?"

Bumblebee turned and drove back in the other direction, scanning his optics across the oncoming traffic until he spotted the perfect alt-form – a similar size, sleek, stylish, an excellent paint job, and in perfect condition.

He popped up on two wheels – a stunt impossible for a real car – to get his alt-mode scanner across the car without switching to protoform, and initiated the transformation subroutines.

Transformation was largely subconscious. Cybertronians were born with the ability, most sparklings with their incomplete programming taking on the simplest and most familiar alt-form – a cube. The ability to copy-transform required complete programming, but it was still mostly intuitive. TOPOtac and remote transformation nodes informed Bumblebee the selected alt-mode was a match. Programming rewrote itself, shifting parts of the Autobot to new places, and as always, the self-repair routines – a quintessential part of transformation, since it rewired circuits and reprogrammed remote software – kicked in. Recreating an alt-form took a healthy cycle of energon thanks mostly to the massive sudden usage of repair routines, although it also had something of a regenerative effect.

With a ripple of repainted, reformed armor plating Bumblebee recreated himself, and when he came to a halt in front of the humans, the looks of utter shock on their faces and his own sense of renewal made the energy expenditure worth it.

"_What!?_" Sam exclaimed, the whites of his eyes showing all the way around his irises and his hands raised in a gesture of amazement. Mikaela's mouth fell open.

Bumblebee began playing a wordless song going by the title "Battle Without Honor Or Humanity", which, given what would likely happen in the next few days or possibly hours, seemed appropriate. The usage of trumpets, drums, and electric guitar produced the sort of fanfare music that humans rallied behind.

Sam and Mikaela glanced at each other and scrambled to the car. Sam let Mikaela in on the passenger's side, then skirted around Bumblebee's front chassis to let himself into the driver's seat. He stroked the wheel appreciatively.

"I didn't even think this car was on the road yet," Mikaela breathed.

"What?" Sam asked. "What kind of car did he turn into?"

"It's – it's a concept car," Mikaela explained. Her hands rubbed the seat under her. "It's the 2009 concept for a reboot of the Chevrolet Camaro line. They're in showrooms, not on the road!"

"Well, this one is on the road," Sam said, his voice rising in pitch. "This is – this is _awesome!_"

Bumblebee chirruped his amusement at their responses to his makeover and accelerated out of the tunnel.

"Hey – hey, does this mean I still have to get your fuel gauge fixed?" Sam asked suddenly.

"_Reports say fossil fuels are polluting ksssht get that gunk out of your car with—" _Bumblebee wavered back and forth between news reports and commercials to cobble together something resembling a sentence.

"… I'll take that as a no?" Sam asked.

"I guess he doesn't like gas very much," Mikaela murmured. "I wonder what he runs on?"

But as Bumblebee found it unlikely he would find the word 'energon' on the airwaves, he made no answer. In the ensuing silence Bumblebee checked the data package he had forced from Barricade. It was clear of viruses, and so he moved the information to his mainframe and opened it. To his delight it confirmed nearly everything Optimus Prime and Jazz had deduced – Megatron had known the location of the Allspark. Archibald Witwicky had inadvertently activated the Decepticon's navigational system, which had reflexively imprinted the coordinates on the critical eyeglasses. Megatron was indeed the Ice Man, and he was being held at an undisclosed location not even mentioned in the secure files.

Bumblebee was quietly impressed that the humans had contained Megatron for so long.

More importantly, Bumblebee discovered why his attempt to satellite uplink had failed; Frenzy had cleverly implanted a virus in Air Force One. Bumblebee deduced the virus had prevented Autobot uplink to human technology. (The purpose of the virus was in the files, but Bumblebee purged the folder nonetheless, unwilling to risk that the encoded file contained the virus itself. Supposing it didn't offline him altogether, Bumblebee didn't need to go 'mute' entirely by losing his internal communications systems.)

The humans were wondering to each other where the Camaro was taking them, which was why it was fortunate they arrived at the Griffith Observatory in short order; Bumblebee pulled up the restricted drive, ignoring the flimsy chain link fence guarding the way, and popped his doors open. Sam and Mikaela obediently got out, their eyes drawn skyward.

Bumblebee had seen his companions make landfall before, but rarely on a planet with such a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere; the sight of their protectively covered protoforms falling like meteorites through the sky was particularly brilliant, obscured by orange, red, and blue-white flames. Even to Bumblebee they were unidentifiable from one to another.

All four of them passed overhead to the north; only one landing was visible to Bumblebee in the distance, on the far side of the local interstate. Sam and Mikaela both twisted to watch as the remaining three faded into the blackness of countryside and the bright lights of suburbia, mouths agape.

"Y-you didn't just bring us up here to see a light show, did you?" This was Mikaela. "Those are your – your what, your friends?"

Bumblebee chirruped positively, but he was only just paying attention to the conversation. His commlink wide open, he waited patiently, listening to quiet static. Within a fifty-mile radius he knew precisely what was happening; the bared protoforms of Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Optimus Prime were all unfolding, assessing for damage acquired during landfall. Taking stock of their surroundings. Seeking, as ever, to avoid contact with the native sentient organics until alternative modes had been selected and taken on. Only afterwards would they break the radio silence forced on them by the atmosphere burn.

Finally, thank Primus, his radio crackled. _"Ratchet to Bumblebee. Landfall burn successful, no damage sustained. Location: 16.86 miles heading 356 degrees geopositional from radon shot. Alt-form: Hummer H2, search and rescue variation, color scheme: chartreuse and red. Standing by."_

"_Jazz to Bumblebee! Landfall burn successful, damage: 0.234 percent coolant loss. I'm 28.33 miles heading 034 degrees geopositional from the radon shot. Alt-form: a bitchin' Pontiac Solstice in silver with 22-inch rims. Sweet!"_

"_Ironhide to Bumblebee. Landfall burn successful, no damage sustained. Location: 23.41 miles bearing 291 degrees from radon shot. Alt-form: GMC Topkick in black. Where's a military vehicle when you need it? And what in Primus' name is a 'tooth fairy', and why would a small organic call me one!?" _It was a good thing Bumblebee didn't have a voice, although the clicking single-tone sounds he made over the radio clearly translated well enough to the much older Autobot. _"And stop laughing!"_

_Look it up, _Bumblebee wrote back. Jazz clearly had: he was howling with laughter from his end.

"_Bumblebee, what is your location?"_ Ratchet sounded fed up with his fellow teammates.

_Not a good meeting point. Stand by._ Bumblebee waited for the most important response of all.

It came a moment later. _"Optimus Prime to Bumblebee. Landfall burn successful, minimal damage sustained. I am currently 56.08 miles bearing 045 degrees from your radon shot. My alternative form is that of a Peterbilt semi tractor-trailer."_

"_Red and blue, right?" _This was Jazz. _"Predictable, sir. You should mix it up once in a while."_

"_I'll take that under advisement. Bumblebee, please advise as to your current location."_

_Currently 10.87 miles bearing 001 from radon shot, sir. Alt-form modded for upgrade purposes, basic concept and color scheme remaining the same. _Bumblebee hesitated in his messaging. _Sir, I have Samuel Witwicky with me now, and another human, a female named Mikaela. Circumstances being what they were, I could not leave her behind. _Speaking of the humans, they were currently leaned close to one another, hand in hand, and whispering nervously. He needed to give them some kind of reassurance or direction.

"_I see," _Optimus replied gravely.

_Sam has a curfew, _Bumblebee added, slightly sheepish about it. _It would be best if we didn't put him in a position to antagonize his parental units. I'll detail the current situation en route to rendezvous._

"_I don't think it's wise to involve any more organics than we have to," _Ironhide opined. _"Drop the girl off somewhere."_

_Sam is very fond of her. Please, sir, for the sake of goodwill, and timeliness._

"_I will stand by Bumblebee's assessment," _Prime decided after a moment. _"Relaying coordinates for rendezvous now." _So relayed, Bumblebee overlapped the information with internal maps of the road system and found the trip would take roughly 20 minutes, lying as close to equidistant between the team members as possible. _"Will you make Samuel's curfew from this location?"_

_I believe so. Please stand by._ Bumblebee popped his car doors open.

Sam and Mikaela both jumped a little, their eyes drawn back to the Camaro. "I guess he wants us to get in again," Sam remarked.

"But where are we _going_?" Mikaela asked. She turned to Bumblebee. "Were those your buddies, th-the – the meteors? Are you taking us to them or something?"

"—_you'll hang with the right cohorts, you'll be good at sports, know the slang you've got to know—" _Bumblebee's radio warbled from a radio commercial for a famous play.

"Okay. Okay, so … more giant robots like you, then?" Sam asked. Bumblebee trilled a little, and Sam nodded jerkily. "Okay." He started forward.

"So – so we're really going with this?" Mikaela asked, grabbing Sam's arm.

Sam glanced back at her. "I trust him," he said firmly, climbing into the Camaro.

Bumblebee would have smiled in protoform. Sam was perhaps too quick to trust, but it pleased him anyway. Mikaela made a helpless gesture and jogged around the car to the other side to climb in as well. _On our way, _Bumblebee reported, starting his engine. _Sir, permission to uplink directly and transmit package data? There is a .081 percent chance of viral infection._

"_Permission granted." _Optimus initiated the uplink; Bumblebee accepted, and after an encryption code was shared, he sent the information he had gleaned from Barricade and the error data from his failed satellite uplink.

_It is imperative we use shortwave radio only, _he wrote to the team. _Limit uplinks with me. It is possible I have been double-exposed to a virus created by one of Soundwaves's cassettes._

"_Bumblebee, what in Primus have you been doing!?" _Ratchet demanded.

_Sorry. _The response, as written, did not carry the proper emotional purport, and Ratchet cycled his vents irritably.

"_Time constraints are critical, Ratchet," _Optimus broke in. _"You can run a diagnostic on Bumblebee later." _There was a pause in communications. _"The virus Bumblebee mentioned has taken down all longwave radio communication systems available to us. At this time there is no way to rectify it, so shortwave communication is mandated. Do not uplink to any human technology at this time._

"_The Decepticons are also aware of the value of the eyeglasses. Humans too may be aware of their value to us. Given the present, although limited, knowledge of our species on this planet, remain on your guard. Our primary objective is to ascertain the location of the Allspark, extract it, and depart this planet with all haste. If it is possible I would have this war removed from such a heavily populated planet."_

_Sir._

"_Yes, sir."_

"_Understood."_

"_No prob, boss."_

"_We will keep radio contact limited in case of Decepticon interception or further interference. And if you would all be so kind, do not scare the boy or his companion."_

"_He said to Ironhide," _Ratchet remarked dryly.

"_I mean that for all of you. He has a lot to absorb in a short period of time. Optimus out!" _He signed off of the common uplink.

"_I can't be all that terrifying to these creatures. A tiny organic! Calling me a _fairy!_" _Ironhide was appropriately disgusted.

Bumblebee was still amused by the idea. _See you soon. Bumblebee out. _He too signed off and turned his attention inwards once again.

Sam and Mikaela were speculating about the nature of Bumblebee's companions. Mikaela actually seemed interested in seeing what was under _all_ of their hoods, and Sam just wanted to know if they all turned into cars. Bumblebee privately thought that they might both find Optimus intimidating whether the Prime meant to be so or not; the humans didn't seem to even be contemplating the concept of a robot taller than Bumblebee.

He finally turned into a quiet, uninhabited alleyway in the middle of a business district and shut his engine off. He heard Sam swallow. "Creepy place," he mumbled. He was trembling slightly. "Guess this is it."

"I guess we should get out," Mikaela added in a soft voice, and they both opened their doors.

Bumblebee could already hear his teammates coming, and within a minute he could lay optics on them; Ironhide, Jazz, and Ratchet approaching from one end of the alleyway, and Optimus Prime approaching from the other. Sam and Mikaela both stood close together, their heartbeats accelerating as Optimus drove up until his grill was almost at their noses.

Optimus transformed immediately. Every time a new alt-form was chosen the transformation changed somewhat, but since available alt-forms were informed by a combination of topology and way their protoforms could fold, it was not that different from anything Bumblebee had seen before. The humans both clutched at each other but held their ground. Indeed, the fact Optimus was choosing to switch to protoform acted as an implicit order, so Bumblebee also unfolded, accompanied by the rest of his team.

It was good to lay optics on everyone again. Jazz needlessly transformed balanced on his hands and windmilled to his feet; Ratchet's last stage of transformation was to twist his torso 180 degrees to face forward. Ironhide loaded his forearm pulse cannons; it was actually part of his transformation sequence dictated by his programming for a military function. Bumblebee had missed them, even for such a short time as he had been away.

The humans both had wide, round eyes and open mouths, obviously awed by their presence and appearance, although particularly Optimus. Optimus crouched, getting as close to their eye level as possible for a 24-foot-tall Cybertronian. "Are you Samuel James Witwicky, descendant of Archibald Witwicky?" he asked after examining Sam for a moment.

"They know your name!" Mikaela whispered.

Sam rocked on his feet. "Yeah," he said after a moment of amazed silence.

"My name is Optimus Prime." He paused for a moment, letting Sam absorb the idea that they actually had designations (names). "We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron." Which was probably the closest English could get to the Cybertronian name of their particular faction, or even the name of their planet.

"But you can call us Autobots for short," Ratchet interjected. He was the one that had coined the term upon their downloading of English. Bumblebee had enjoyed the secondary meaning of the word as what humans would term a 'bad pun' resulting from the inadequacy of their language: 'auto' referring to 'automobiles', which all the Autobots would inevitably pick as alt-forms since none of them were flight-capable. Jazz had laughed at least; Ratchet had been less amused.

"Autobots," Sam repeated.

Jazz now made his shameless bid for attention. As always even in protoform his armor was sleek and form-fitted. "What's crackin', little bitches?" He executed a perfect imitation of human 'break-dancing' and flung himself onto an old car behind him.

Optimus introduced him, rank and role: "My first lieutenant, designation: Jazz."

"This looks like a good place to kick it," Jazz commented, leaning back with his arms crossed. It was the first time Bumblebee had heard Jazz speak in English, and of course he would pick the vernacular 'ebonics'.

Sam looked back and forth between Optimus and Jazz. "Wh … where did you learn to talk like that?"

"We have learned Earth's languages through the World Wide Web."

Sam didn't say it, but Bumblebee saw his lips form the interjection, "Oh."

"My weapons specialist, Ironhide."

Ironhide planted his feet, loaded his cannons by spinning them like six-shooter guns in a human Western movie, and pointed them at Sam and Mikaela. "Are ya feelin' lucky, punk!?"

"_Don't want any more organics mistakin' you for a fairy?" _Jazz cracked over the commlink.

"Easy, Ironhide," Optimus chastened, which Bumblebee felt was a little unfair to do aloud; Ironhide was not gentle, but he would not vaporize Sam, at least. He hoped Sam didn't read too much into Optimus' comment.

"Just kiddin'. I just wanted to show 'em my cannons," Ironhide protested, shrugging.

"Our medical officer, Ratchet," Optimus gestured.

Ratchet moved his faceplates to activate his scent processors. "Hm. From the boy's pheromone levels it seems he wishes to mate with the female."

_Ratchet!_ Bumblebee made a note to talk to the medical officer later, horrified at how Ratchet may have, with a few words, undone any progress Sam might have made with Mikaela. If there was anything Bumblebee had learned from their interactions, humans did not state outright their sexual interest in one another. Sam and Mikaela both shifted on their feet and Sam whistled quietly, visibly uncomfortable with the revelation.

But Optimus was already turning their attention towards him. "You already know your guardian, Bumblebee." Finally able to be introduced properly to the boy he had watched for two weeks and guarded actively for days, Bumblebee was quickly distracted with looking appropriately 'cool'. Not to be outshone by his teammates, the scout executed an imitation of a kickboxer and found, much to his delight, a song he felt described him pretty well: _"Check on the rep: yep, second to none!"_

Sam looked up at him with a tiny smile. "So you're my guardian."

Bumblebee nodded and chirruped, drawing a disapproving click from Ratchet. _"Stop undoing all my hard work. Hold still."_

"His vocal processors were damaged in battle," Optimus informed the humans with diplomatic non-specification even as Ratchet abruptly unsheathed a laser scalpel and directed at Bumblebee's neck circuitry. Several circuits that Bumblebee had not even realized were severed knit themselves back together as Ratchet used the scalpel to remotely activate a self-repair node; they shifted back into place painfully, prompting a reflex surge. The sound involuntarily forced from the scout was similar to coughing.

"I'm still working on them," Ratchet informed the humans gravely. _"And you – you need to stop abusing what's left of your vocal circuits!"_

"Ow," Bumblebee attempted to groan, massaging the circuits in question with a hand; the sound he made was an unintelligent trill that earned him another glare. So much was wrong with the whole vocalization node that probably even Ratchet didn't realize the extent of it; at the moment it hurt _more_ with the wiring properly connected. The medic still refused to accept that his language motherboard needed complete replacement, considering that there were no such motherboards to be had these days.

"Why are you here?" Mikaela asked after looking at all of the Autobots in turn.

"We are looking for the Allspark, and we must find it before Megatron," Optimus stated, grave as ever now that the introductions were done. He touched the side of his cerebral processor, activating the holotech in his optics, and proceeded to explain the nature of Cybertron and the Allspark, the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons, and the role of Archibald Witwicky and his eyeglasses in very simplistic terms.

"_Sounds so neat and simple when he puts it like that," _Ironhide commented to the others over the commlink. _"Just good versus evil."_

"_Humans like that sort of thing, as we see in their entertainment," _Ratchet opined.

"_They're more complicated than that, bros," _Jazz retorted. _"There just ain't no time."_

"Wait, how did you know about his glasses?" Sam asked as Optimus deactivated the illustrative hologram.

_Don't mention me STOP. He will not appreciate that I spied on him before he bought me STOP, _Bumblebee hurriedly communicated.

"Ebay," Optimus answered Sam, silently acquiescing to the scout's plea.

"If the Decepticons find the Allspark before us, they will use it to transform Earth's machines and build a new army," Ratchet interjected.

"And the human race will be extinguished," Optimus continued, ever calm. Hyperbole, perhaps, Bumblebee and the others knew: more likely humans would be ignored or become playthings for the Decepticons, killed by carelessness and sometimes cruelty. Megatron would be more likely to enjoy a new bounty of organic subjects to rule over. Optimus stood, his imposing height forcing the humans to crane their necks, and the other Autobots gathered around. Bumblebee leaned on his knees. "Sam Witwicky. You hold the key to Earth's salvation," Optimus said.

Sam just stared at them; Mikaela looked at Sam pleadingly. "Please tell me you have those glasses," she said, obviously now a believer.

Sam swallowed several times. "Uh … uh, yeah. I have them. They're at my house."

"Are you certain?" Optimus asked, glancing at Bumblebee. "Time is of the essence."

"Uh – well, it's where I left them, so they've – they've gotta be there." Sam looked pleadingly at Mikaela, then Optimus, glancing briefly at Bumblebee as if for approval.

"Very well, then; we go immediately. Autobots! Transform and roll out!" The familiar command was issued in English for the benefit of the humans, as was Optimus' custom when communicating with any alien sentient life.

Bumblebee folded back into his alt-form at the same time as his teammates, opening his doors for Sam and Mikaela to hop in. _"Nice alt-form," _Jazz praised Bumblebee's upgrade while Sam and Mikaela climbed in; Ironhide backed out of Bumblebee's way so he could lead them to the Witwicky home.

"I can't believe the fate of the whole world rests with my great-grandfather's glasses," Sam told Mikaela as Bumblebee began to accelerate out of the alleyway. "I guess it's a good thing nobody bid on them, huh?"

"Yeah," Mikaela agreed, and once again they fell into awed silence.

"… Optimus Prime is huge," Sam added. "And I thought my car – I mean, uh, Bumblebee … was huge."

Amused by their conversation, Bumblebee jumped a bit when Optimus opened a commlink again. _"Bumblebee, what is our ETA?"_

_10 minutes, roughly. _Provided there wasn't any traffic on the roads, which Bumblebee did not foresee with rush hour long over.

"_Good," _Ratchet abruptly broke in. _"That should be enough time for you to catalogue and report on your accumulated damage."_

"_He's been glitchin' to get his hands on you, 'Bee," _Jazz announced. _"You better run!"_

Bumblebee ignored this, remembering something he'd wanted to mention earlier. _Ratchet, you should know that humans do not announce their desire to copulate up front. Nor do they communicate the desire by pheromones. You made Sam and Mikaela both uncomfortable._

"_You aren't equipped to sense pheromones, Bumblebee," _Ratchet responded patiently. _"I'm sure they were more traumatized by Ironhide's stunt regardless."_

"_What part of 'limit radio communication' do you glitches not understand!?" _Ironhide demanded. _"Shut your commlinks off!"_

_Optimus Prime opened it, _Bumblebee protested.

"_He's just sore about bein' a fairy," _Jazz laughed.

"_Ironhide out!" _The Topkick signed out with a _click._

"_Shut your commlinks now. Do not open them again unless I order it. Optimus out." _The Prime sounded weary.

Bumblebee sheepishly issued a signoff. Optimus had much more important things on his mind than effectively dooming Bumblebee to forced muteness. The scout had occasionally been on the other end of a long scouting mission, performing his original primary function of maintenance on Teletraan-1 and the Ark while waiting for Jazz to make reports planet-side, and everyone got a little … Jazz would call it 'glitchy', but no one was ever truly malfunctioning; they were just eagerly waiting for word, for command. Optimus Prime took everything with fair grace usually, but Bumblebee suspected that sometimes Optimus ordered forced radio silence just to make everyone shut up.

Actually the scout felt as if his capacitors were overcharged. In less than an hour, for the first time in twelve thousand Earth solar years, they would know the exact location of the Allspark. It would be within their grasp, finally safe from the Decepticons crawling all over the planet. The war would not be over, but with the Allspark in Autobot hands, the end would be in sight.

"There it is, there's my house," Sam exclaimed as if Bumblebee didn't know where they were going. "Turn … uh …" he trailed off. "I knew that."

Mikaela made a sarcastic affirmative sound. "Uh-huh." The Camaro wondered what kind of body language he'd missed (again). He noted that they had successfully made Sam's curfew, arriving a few minutes before 11 o'clock.

Bumblebee didn't pull into the driveway, though, guiding the other Autobots down the alleyway behind Sam's street to park in a line. "Look, Bumble-uh, Bumblebee," Sam stammered, now leaning forward and talking to the Autobot's dashboard. "You guys have to stay out here and wait for me, okay? I left the glasses in my room. Just be patient, okay?" Sam fairly leapt from the car, and Mikaela stood as well, halfway out of her seat as Sam came around Bumblebee's hood. "Stay here, all right? You've gotta watch him; you've gotta watch all of them. Five minutes, all right?" He ran off towards the backyard of his house.

_Sam, I would do as you ask in one of your heartbeats, but—_

"Autobots, recon," Prime ordered aloud. "Bumblebee, take point." _"Open your commlinks and kindly keep chatter to a minimum," _he added over internal radio.

But Optimus Prime's orders came first. And if Bumblebee was impatiently waiting for the eyeglasses, he was tempered slightly by fondness for this tiny organic and his earnest, nervous nature, whereas Prime was not. (He was also probably not exactly impressed by how Sam had assigned them to the care of his female love interest as if they were pets to be watched, but Bumblebee didn't like to think that kind of thing would make the even-handed Optimus angry.)

"No, no no no no!" Mikaela waved her hands frantically when Prime unfolded from his alt-form. Bumblebee followed suit, offering the girl a helpless shrug as he ducked between the tall bushes and crossed the yard to the side of the house. Behind him he could hear Optimus stepping into the yard as well; he glanced back to note that his position was out of Sam's father's line of sight.

He tuned his audio receptors to Sam's frantic conversation with his father through the glass door leading to the immaculate yard. "—And I'm gonna sweep up the whole house. Right now, yeah, tonight …"

Sam glanced Bumblebee's way, much to the Autobot's surprise. Bumblebee put a finger to his faceplates, shaking his head and whistling air through a vent to imitate a human's 'shush'ing sound. _How did he hear me? _He put out his hand to placate Sam in case the human saw then realized it might be visible through the window; he pulled his hand back.

"I love you, Dad," Sam said with great feeling, turning back to his father in a hurry and successfully distracting his father from the large Cybertronians preparing to lumber around his backyard.

Optimus was moving in from where he crouched behind the shed, issuing orders to Ratchet, Ironhide, and Jazz: _"Jazz, watch our back chassis. Ironhide, rear flank, Ratchet, left flank."_ Bumblebee frantically gestured for Optimus to stop, waving his fingers in front of his throat before waving his hand again in a signal to step back. _Fall back EXCLAMATION!_

The Prime looked at him, not seeming to comprehend Bumblebee's reasoning for falling back again. Bumblebee helplessly raised his open palm. _The parents will see you STOP. Sam is endeavoring to keep them distracted STOP. _Prime consented to take one step back and wait until Ron stepped away from the door and Sam ran frantically back down into the yard. "What are you doing? What are you doing!?"

Optimus carefully stepped clear of Sam's unpredictable, panicked movements, moving around the human even as the human endeavored to move around him. "Watch the path, watch the path, please, _please--!" _But it was too late; Optimus stepped on the stone fountain Ron had installed in the middle of the paths on his lawn. Bumblebee raised a hand to his optics in a wincing gesture. Optimus' weight was ruining the careful structuring of the lawn the father had labored over every day that Bumblebee had observed them.

"Oops. My bad," Optimus said. It was the first words the Autobots had learned for apologies in English.

But Sam was alternatively folding his arms and gesturing wildly with his hands, unable to get out a complete sentence in his frustration. "I told you, I _told you--! _Augh! I – you couldn't wait for _five minutes?_ Stay, just – stay!" He tore off towards the road again, passing Ironhide on the way.

"_Is he ordering us around like a domesticated pet?" _Ironhide inquired.

"_Ironhide," _Optimus replied flatly. _"Where is he going?"_

"_He is speaking to the female."_

And indeed Sam was, grabbing Mikaela who had finally picked her way through the bushes lining the Witwicky yard. "I told you to watch them!"

"Yeah, well, they seemed to be in a little bit of a hurry," Mikaela shot back.

Sam sighed loudly, glanced back, and his eyes got wide again. "No, Mojo, no--!"

Bumblebee spotted the tiny dog at about the same time as Ironhide noticed it – when it started lubricating on Ironhide's footplates. "Augh!" groaned the Autobot, lifting his foot and shaking it. Jazz, lurking as a slightly luminous shadow in the bushes to the south, was clearly trying not to laugh, his ventilators clamped so tightly shut a gnat couldn't have passed through them.

"Easy, easy!" Sam cried, picking up the Chihuahua even as Ironhide began to load up his cannons. "This is Mojo," he tried to explain, his voice trembling in the face of Ironhide's wrath. "He's a pet. He's my pet."

"You have a rodent infestation. Shall I terminate?" Ironhide threatened.

Optimus shook his head, pressing his fingers to where a human would have the pressure point known as temples. Mikaela approached Sam nervously, glancing back and forth between the frantic boy and the Autobots swarming around them. Bumblebee realized abruptly just _how _intimidating they must have all looked – destroying Ron's careful work, towering over them, threatening their pets and refusing to listen. _But we would never hurt you, Sam; surely you realize that, _he thought.

Mojo was another story. Even Bumblebee would have been tempted to take out the non-sentient little beast if it had lubricated on _his _foot. "He peed on you?" Sam asked. "Bad Mojo!" he reprimanded the dog.

"Bad Mojo," Ironhide repeated, testing the reprimand in his vocals as if seeing if it actually had any effect on something non-sentient. Ratchet scanned the dog in Sam's arms, cocking his head with interest.

"Sam," Optimus interjected. "The glasses."

"Yes. Right." Sam made placating gestures, his shoulders taut and trembling. "I'm getting them, but – just – augh, just don't let my parents see you!" He turned and fled into the house; Bumblebee listened to him run up to his room.

Mikaela looked up at them all. "Seriously, why didn't you wait?"

"There is no time," Optimus answered calmly.

"It would have gone faster if you waited!" Mikaela's voice expressed exasperation and fear.

Optimus ignored this; there was no way to be sure, after all. "Autobots, recon," he reiterated. _"Bumblebee, the Creators."_ Bumblebee nodded once in assent and bent down to his hands and knees to lay optics on the interior of Sam's home for the first time.

The parents were discussing Sam's curfew. Bumblebee noted with no small relief that they did not seem concerned about their son, which as his Creators the Autobot had been certain would be worrying about Sam's mental state. They fell silent, drinking a substance that smelled faintly of something like ethanol, and watched the television. The news they were watching was about the destructive meteor shower in Tranquility earlier that night: in other words, the arrival of his teammates. Little did the two know that those very meteors were standing outside their living room right now!

They happily watched television for a few minutes before Ron got up from the couch. _Father is moving towards the window STOP, _Bumblebee relayed, backing away rapidly on his hands and knees.

"_Autobots, alt-forms now!" _Optimus ordered, folding down into his truck alt-mode. The others immediately obeyed.

They remained like that for 48 seconds, idling on the lawn inconspicuously, before Sam's voice was audible from his room. "Oh – oh no. Guys, guys! This is not hiding! This is my lawn, not a truck stop!"

"_Bumblebee, what in Primus' name does he mean?" _Ironhide demanded.

Bumblebee floundered for a good answer. _Our alt-forms are not sufficient cover in this location QUERY?_

"_Hm." _Optimus considered this for a moment. _"This is taking too long. I will speak with the boy. Remain as is." _He unfolded to protoform and leaned against the house to peer in an open window of Sam's room, his foot falling in the careful arrangements of Judy Witwicky's flowers. Bumblebee backed up an inch, flinching on the Witwicky family's behalf.

Sam cried out in dismay yet again at the destruction. Optimus apologized, and Sam finally explained how imperative it was that his parents not see them. He also told Optimus that the glasses were not in his room.

For the first time in several hundred years Bumblebee heard Optimus utter a growl of frustration. "Keep searching!" he demanded.

"I need you to be quiet. I need you to be quiet for five minutes. Ten minutes. I'm begging you. I just – you tell me to keep looking but you keep interrupting, and I can't concentrate. You're making a racket. I need you to do something here. I need you to—" Sam babbled as Bumblebee had seen him do before; it seemed to be a defense mechanism against extreme stress for him.

"Calm down, calm down," Optimus grumbled. "Autobots, fall back. Move!" Obediently the team rapidly transformed back to protoform, hurriedly falling back behind the bushes and trees as Optimus shooed them away with his hands. "He wants us to be quiet. Why can't you be quiet?" he grumbled, more visibly irritable than he had been in – in several vorns, actually. Bumblebee padded as quietly as possible around some artfully arranged forsythia and crouched there, out of sight. _"Five minutes. Then we go in and find the glasses for him," _Optimus added over the commlink as he stepped over the bushes and back into the alleyway.

"_Chill out, boss. The kid's freakin'," _Jazz suggested. Close though they all were, only Jazz could get away with saying that sort of thing to the Prime.

And get results. Optimus cycled his vents loudly, but assented. _"I must remember to make allowances for his youth."_

On the other side of the house Ratchet made an exclamation of surprise; the ground trembled and the lights in the house flickered for fifteen seconds before going out entirely. _"What happened?" _Optimus demanded.

"_Ratchet fell on some power lines," _Ironhide reported.

"_Ex-ex-experiencing feedback, sir-rrr." _Ratchet's voice stuttered over the comm. _"T-tingling sensation in my circuit-t-t-ts!"_

"_Fascinating," _Ironhide snorted.

Bumblebee covered his faceplates with his hands and clamped his vents shut as they cycled loudly with amusement and exasperation at once. He had never been embarrassed by his team before, and he wasn't now, but he tried to conceive of how Sam perceived them all and found that his logic processors attempted to overload on the number of variables.

"_Sam's five minutes are up," _Optimus announced. _"Ratchet, pull yourself together. Ironhide, check on his progress. Bumblebee, Jazz, hold your positions. I will keep my optics on the parents."_ So saying, Optimus moved back into the yard.

"_Masturbation? Bumblebee, what is that?" _Ratchet asked after a minute and fifty seconds.

_Self-stimulation of the genitals to achieve orgasm STOP. It is a normal thing amongst humans STOP. Why QUERY? _Bumblebee answered, bewildered and stepping into the open to look at his teammates clustered at Sam's room.

"_Why is the boy uncomfortable with discussing such an act with his Creators? Surely they must know their creation does this sort of thing," _the medic explained.

_I don't know QUERY?_

"_Cut the chatter down," _Optimus demanded. _"Parents are coming to the window-!"_ The largest Autobot rapidly twisted and backed away, pressing himself up against the roof of the house at its right-angle junction. "Hide. Quickly!"

Bumblebee fairly dove under the porch overhang to be out of the line of sight of the windows. His sensors, even flattened to his back, gently struck the ball-shaped lights hanging over him and he flinched; he looked up at Optimus Prime, who was braced against the house and struggling to find purchase for his feet in the soft earth. _"This is ridiculous."_

"_Yes. The parents are very irritating," _Ironhide agreed. Bumblebee heard his cannons charge.

Ratchet, uncharacteristically eager, added, _"Yeah yeah yeah, can I take them out?"_

"_Ironhide!"_ Optimus pushed himself off the roof, giving the all-clear signal before bending threateningly towards the other Autobot. _"You know we don't harm humans! What is with you?"_ He took in Ratchet with his gaze as well.

Bumblebee twisted to look up at Ironhide; the weapons specialist shrugged. _"I'm just saying. It's an option," _he said, his tone only half joking. Ratchet just shrugged.

"_Hey, guys, shut your vocals down for a second," _Jazz interrupted. _"I'm pickin' up human radio chatter to the north. Say they're almost to the Witwicky place on the trail of N.B.E.-2."_

All optics turned on Bumblebee. While the scout didn't know precisely what the designation stood for, he did know it referred to him; it was this group of humans that had likely laid the Allspark trap several weeks prior and had chased him in his alt-form in Virginia years ago. But why were they here now of all times? _The police report! Sam telling the law officers about a car that drove itself and became a robot! _At the time Bumblebee had worried it would bring the militaristic humans to Sam's doorstep!

_This may not end well STOP, _Bumblebee communicated, backing out of his hiding place on the porch.

"_Oh, and the kid found the glasses," _Jazz added.

Too bad the moment had been ruined by the arrival of Sector Seven.

_Tbc_

_Song credits go to .Main (Broken Compass), Tomoyasu Hotei (Battle Without Honor or Humanity)(which you may know better as the Kill Bill song), _Wicked _(Popular), and Avengers (Second to None). Before you write to tell me only Ironhide talks about killing Sam's parents, go watch that scene again, preferably with subtitles. Not only is Ratchet the one bouncing up and down while the words are said, but the subtitles also indicate a new speaker with a dash at the beginning of a line. Between "the parents. Very irritating," and "Yeah yeah yeah, can I take them out?", there is a dash. Yeah. I was surprised too!_

_My apologies for less original content than usual here. There was just so much going on; I tried to bring the focus away from the humans a little to keep things fresh._

_Thanks again to all the reviewers: Skittles the Sugar Fairy (next chapter is Sector 7! Bumblebee is a little embarrassed here, haha), Geekgirl (I hope you enjoyed the hide and seek and Optimus being Angry), Rena1 (Bumblebee, a jerk? Never! Glad you like reading his opinions), tugaMaggie (Proud to be your first Transformers fic! Thanks!), Bookworm Gal (Sorry there's no fight scenes for a while. Sadface!), whitedino (that's an interesting idea for the Batman symbol, very clever!), Jideni (hehee, I hope this chapter answered some of your questions. Thank you for such a thoughtful review!), leleana (Thank you! I'm glad you feel he's in-character), Hellfirefanatic (wow, that's really high praise. Thank you so very much for telling me exactly what you were enjoying), Blume (aww, I hope that's now how the Autobots feel about 'bee!), and "Stripperella" (I don't know; I kind of breezed over the part when they're meteorites. I figure they'd still be in blackout communications so Bumblebee wouldn't be able to talk to any of them)._

_Next up: Sometimes it just sucks to be Bumblebee … but sometimes it is also awesome to be Bumblebee._

_Thank you again for all the reviews, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!_


	7. Silence is Golden

_WARNING: this chapter deals with torture scenes in the movie. It's also insanely long and has bathroom humor. You stand forewarned._

**Chapter 6: Silence is Golden**

_Four years ago: Southern Faquier County, Virginia, 26 days post-landfall_

In times past, long before Bumblebee had been brought online, Cybertronians had been confused and amazed by the presence of biological life forms on other planets. Upon first encounter, when the Cybetronian scouts had taken on the form of their machines, they had thought they were actually taking on the appearance of their fellow cybernetic organisms. Panic had flown when they realized their alien counterparts could not talk or move on their own; they didn't even have sparks! Horrified, assuming the vehicles had been captured and stripped of their personalities and autonomy by the strange biological creatures, they had made a disaster of their first organic contact.

Now well aware that they were largely unique in the galaxy and surrounded by biological life, Bumblebee had known what to expect (generally speaking) of the largely water-bound, heavily vegetated planet he had made landfall on. The sentient creatures were clearly the dominant species; they were bipedal like the Cybertronians and shared features generally similar to the configuration of Cybertronian faceplates. Their language was single-toned audio, carried on face-to-face and over external commlinks they held to their auditory receptors and vocal processors. They also had written language, accessible on a largely cybernetic network carried by hardware and radar waves from their skybound and planet-bound satellites and protected marginally by what imitated primitive Cybertronian encryptions. The first translations of 'English', the dominant language of this particular sect of organisms, were created by the combined efforts of Ratchet and Jazz after Bumblebee sent them a download of a word repository and the broken down, tedious binary code that the repository relied upon to be communicated by cybernetic network.

After learning how the written symbols translated to the spoken version of the language (not very well), Bumblebee first got to truly apply the information when he detected two particular vehicles upon coming out of recharge in an unpopulated part of the land called 'Virginia'. Bringing his optics and auditory systems online, Bumblebee sighted the vehicles – black, tall, topologically related to Ironhide's size – and beside them a cluster of 'humans' (the self-description of the sentient organics) with their optic-enhancers trained on him. They were talking to one another too quietly for Bumblebee to hear at this distance, but radio waves emerged from the vehicles in short static bursts; the encryption on them was negligible. Bumblebee didn't move, tuning into the transmissions.

"—parks in the middle of a damn cornfield."

"What's it doing?"

"Nothing. Just sitting there. It looks like a car, sir, an old, beat-up Buick LeSabre. I'm not sure how this relates back to N.B.E.-1."

"Oh, it does. Trust me, I have an instinct for these things. That thing's no car."

"Well, it's not doing anything. No sign of life. It's radiating heat but that's probably because of the sun on its roof." The human's voice gained an inflection of sarcasm. "Maybe it's sleeping."

"Maybe it is." The other human ignored the sarcasm. "Move in. I've got a team of cryogenic officers with me, ETA five minutes. We'll jump this bitch before it knows what hit it."

"Agent Simmons, we don't know anything yet! We—"

"Agent Blake, I suggest you hop to it before N.B.E.-2 wakes up and crushes you under its wheels. Simmons out."

The radio transmission ended. A human climbed out of one of the vehicles and began to converse with its fellows before they all turned and climbed into their trucks, taking various electronic equipment with them. Upon starting their engines, they drove off towards the north, following the dirt roads that would take them closer to Bumblebee's current location.

The humans were aware of him and suspected his alt-form. Under orders to avoid human contact if at all possible, the scout prepared for retreat.

Bumblebee started his engine, turned in the other direction, and drove through hundreds of meters of the tall vegetation he had taken refuge in. A wooden construction of slats barred the way, but it shattered easily under his grill. After a bumpy ride through some shorter vegetation on uneven ground and a brief patch of trouble in the form of an unexpectedly muddy dip in the fields, Bumblebee climbed a steep hill to turn onto a two-way two-lane road made of small, paved rocks melted together into a relatively smooth surface.

A large black vehicle began to approach from behind him. It was the same model as the other two vehicles; its engine revved high as it rapidly approached Bumblebee's rear chassis. Bumblebee maintained speed for the moment; while this vehicle was likely carrying humans related to the ones aware of him, he was not certain if the risk of actual contact was greater if he broke the limits of speed imposed by humans on their roads. Apparently there were entire sects of humans dedicated to stopping and punishing humans in vehicles that broke such limits.

When the vehicle bumped Bumblebee's rear fender with enough force to make the Autobot lose road traction, he changed his mind. Dropping his gearshift downwards and opening up his energon flow, Bumblebee abruptly accelerated to three times his previous speed, bringing him up to roughly 120 miles per solar hour and banking around curves as only a not-a-car could. The other vehicle also sped up, but it took them longer and they had to slow around the turns.

A burst of radio chatter issued from the car. "Dammit, dammit, it's getting away! Cut it off at Route 1 and Dale Road! We'll be there in less than two minutes!"

"Sir, we can't get there that fast!"

"You'd damn well better or I'll skin you alive! We're not letting N.B.E.-2 escape!"

A small projectile, detectible only as the whine of rapidly breaking air, struck the road dangerously close to Bumblebee's tire. The Autobot swerved, alarmed; it wasn't a plasma bullet, but they weren't the first biological life form to find small, high-speed projectiles deadly to one another and dangerous to Cybertronians. Another projectile ricocheted against his rear window and left a miniscule spider web of cracks, and another swiped his hood.

He couldn't accelerate further on the winding road without losing traction. Bumblebee put up with the pinging annoyances, swerving back and forth slightly to keep the humans' aim off his rear wheels. As he crested a hill at such a speed that he became airborne for three seconds, Bumblebee spotted the other two black vehicles in the distance, driving down a road that would intersect Bumblebee's own at a visible intersection at the bottom of the hill.

Drifting around the last corner before the intersection, Bumblebee was granted a short respite from the hail of projectiles by the raised ground between himself and his pursuers. He downshifted again and accelerated, aware that he would not be able to make the perpendicular turn that would take him away from all three vehicles and northwards up the road apparently known as Route 1 and noting that the road he was currently on terminated at the intersection. There were other vehicles at the intersection, idling obediently at the red light Bumblebee was about to ignore. He only had to make the green light to prevent causing any casualties.

"Holy – it's accelerating. It's never going to make that turn," one of the humans assessed over the radio. "What's it doing!?"

Bumblebee tore through the intersection at roughly 220 miles per hour. He bounced on his chassis, broke off the aslphalt airborne, and sailed into the treeline twenty meters away from the road.

His forward momentum terminated roughly ten meters later, slamming his roof and hood into a tree. The tree cracked under his weight and Bumblebee transformed, falling with the tree to land on his back, his armor heavily dented and coolant leak warnings popping up all over his diagnostics. The Autobot ignored this, climbing to his feet and running off through the woods.

"Did you see that? A tree just fell down."

"Can you see N.B.E.-2? It must have hurt itself with a stunt like that."

"No, no visual of N.B.E.-2. Repeat, no visual."

"Dammit!" A loud cracking sound and a voice full of frustration assaulted 'Bee's radio. "We can't pursue in there with any kind of effectiveness. The bitch is long-gone." A pause followed. "Quick, get the local police watching for a beige brown-top 1993 Buick LeSabre on the roads. Tell them it's a matter of national security, do not approach, repeat, do not approach." The voices became more static-y the further Bumblebee got. "I want this _kssht_ found by _psssssh_—"

_Change alt-form immediately, _Bumblebee thought to himself, still picking his way through the woods.

It was 37 minutes before the Autobot spotted a road sufficiently populated by vehicles to pick a new alt-form. Bumblebee remained in the tree cover, gazing down the slight incline to the one-way four-lane road below; a sign nearby declared it Interstate 95. Many of the vehicles were actually a bit too small for the scout, but after three minutes and eight seconds of scanning vehicles, Bumblebee spotted a design that pleased his optics. TOPOtac and LOGISTIC approved the choice.

Less than a minute later, a beat-up 1976 Chevrolet Camaro painted yellow with black racing stripes turned onto Route 95 Northbound towards Washington, D.C., leaking (not that anyone noticed) what humans would have thought to be freon intermittently.

No law enforcement or large black vehicles appeared behind him.

&

_Present Day: Tranquility, Nevada, 1336 days post-landfall_

"Autobots, fall back," Optimus ordered. "Hurry!"

All antics ceased immediately. The Autobots scattered, scuttling through or stepping over the bushes that blocked the alleyway. "Bumblebee, threat assessment. Jazz, keep the humans' line cracked."

Bumblebee took a moment to answer as he took in all the variables. Mikaela was in the house along with Sam, visible through the back windows. The parents were also in the house. Jazz had said the humans were on Bumblebee's trail so they may or may not suspect his current presence. Having not had the time to set up a trap that any of the Autobots could sense around the house, there was only a 15 percent chance of heavy military weaponry being present. _The threat to us is low, _he wrote. _On foot in domestic soil military members rarely have more than handheld guns at their disposal. There is a chance of frozen nitrogen being carried. _The threat there was inherent; super-frozen, liquid nitrogen could freeze a Cybertronian's circuits within seconds. However, the humans had to get close enough to use them. _The threat to Sam is significantly greater. Humans have ways of detecting falsehoods, and he has told local authorities about my existence. I believe they will question Sam on my presence._

"And if we are detected?" Ironhide asked.

_I do not know for certain. There is a significant chance they will attempt capture. I do not believe they aim for termination, however, and there are several of us; they will likely call for reinforcements. In case of contact with us, I do not know what will happen to Sam._

Optimus nodded and fell silent for a moment. "The bastards are movin' in, boss," Jazz reported. "Wavin' sensors all over the place."

"Do they have a way to detect us?" Optimus asked.

_Again, I don't know for certain, _Bumblebee admitted. He'd merely fled from any contact with this group.

"Are the glasses with Sam?"

"Best I can tell. Seemed he put 'em in his rags."

The Prime made his decision. "If we face them here, while they are ready, we will risk lives unnecessarily. It is best we attempt to catch them off-guard. Autobots, scatter. Locate all possible roadways leading from the Witwicky home. Jazz, reconnaissance. Bumblebee, remain with Sam and Mikaela wherever they go or stay. Move out!"

The Autobots scattered again, dropping into alt-modes to drive off in different directions down the alleyway; Bumblebee moved one hundred meters away into the shadows, within sight of Jazz but out of the direct line of sight of the house. As he had for so many weeks, he tuned his sensors to the Witwicky abode, ignoring all other input except his commlink.

"Son," said a voice Bumblebee had heard on several previous occasions. "Step forward, please." There were a series of barely-audible mechanical blips. "Fourteen rads! Bingo! Take 'em and bag 'em!"

There was immediately a cacophony of sound: Sam's parents shouting in alarm that _no one _was taking their son away, Sam protesting, Mikaela protesting, and the front door banging open. Bumblebee rocked back on his heels. _They're taking Sam!_ He wrote. _Repeat: humans are taking Sam Witwicky! I am moving to tail them, but they know my alt-form coloration, so I can't follow too closely._ He folded down into a car again and U-turned to race down the alleyway.

"_Visual contact established. Vehicles bear a striking resemblance to my alt-mode," _Ironhide reported. "_I'll take point. Permission to blast out of the water, sir?"_

"_Permission denied! If these humans know who we are it is even more imperative that we do not act with hostility," _Optimus answered.

"_They're takin' the chick too," _Jazz reported. _"Maybe the parents too … yep, them too. This is bad, boss."_

"_Visual contact established! Sam and Mikaela are being placed in a car bearing ID CIS-1223. Their arms are restrained behind their backs. Parents are being placed in a car bearing ID TRX-2385." _Ratchet paused in his communications. _"They are going in different directions. Four cars are remaining with Sam and Mikaela, one car bearing away parents in the other direction."_

"_Ignore the parents for now,"_ Optimus ordered. _"We can't afford to split our resources at this point. Our first priority is Sam and the glasses."_

"_On it," _Ironhide reported. Bumblebee turned towards the main road just in time to park behind Ironhide folding into his alt-mode and tailing a series of black vehicles with red-and-blue lights rushing down the road. They did bear a close resemblance to the Topkick alt-form, so Ironhide fit in impressively when he turned onto the road barely fifty meters behind them.

Bumblebee jumped slightly on his chassis when Jazz suddenly swerved around him and peeled out onto the road in hot pursuit. _"Don't worry, Bee, we'll keep him in our optics at all times," _he promised.

"_Do not attack, repeat, do not attack," _Optimus ordered. _"We will retrieve Sam and the girl without casualties. Bumblebee, Ratchet, stay close to me." _The Peterbilt truck didn't pass by Bumblebee's hiding place for another minute and ten seconds; Bumblebee pulled out and followed finally.

"_They're turning left three blocks down," _Ironhide announced.

_There's a parallel road right here STOP, _Bumblebee informed the Prime. Optimus turned accordingly. _Are we going to cut them off QUERY?_

"_If the chance arises, yes._"

"_Turning right!"_

_They're heading for Route 93 STOP, _Bumblebee realized.

"_Give me an alternate route."_

Bumblebee plotted the route and sent it to Optimus and Ratchet; the Hummer H2 and Peterbilt both put on speed. Bumblebee was tempted to race on ahead, but he kept to his orders reluctantly. Jazz and Ironhide would report any route changes.

But his commlink fell silent, not even a fizzle of static crossing his internal radio. For 48 seconds Bumblebee sensed nothing amiss, but when Optimus swerved around a corner and picked up even more speed as if realizing a reason to pick up the pace without explaining himself, Bumblebee grew alarmed. _Optimus QUERY?_

A warning popped up on his systems. _RADIO OFFLINE (ERROR: UNKNOWN) DIAGNOSTIC … IN PROGRESS_

Bumblebee frantically switched his radio on and off: the thin hiss of static greeted his audio sensors, but nothing more. He tuned into twenty-one different local stations on both AM and FM channels: nothing.

_DIAGNOSTIC … IN PROGRESS_

_Ratchet, Jazz, Ironhide? Anyone? _Bumblebee wrote. But there was no response.

_DIAGNOSTIC: COMPLETE. RADIO OFFLINE LINK COMMTAC OFFLINE SATTELITE UPLINK OFFLINE ENCRYPTION OFFLINE ERROR FOREIGN 54739477-23490458430394583672-3-3045874673-230458436976-30-450498523 … _the numbers scrolled across his optics, but they were nonsense and continuous, jamming up his processors with an overload of information. In desperation Bumblebee shut down the diagnostic program and made a simple query for the self-repair node that had detected the 'foreign' error. Upon locating it, he took it offline.

_Frenzy's little virus infected me after all, _he realized.

And now he was well and truly mute.

&

He was also half-deaf, unable to hear any communications over the commlink. When Ratchet stopped under the bridge that carried train tracks and Optimus continued onwards, Bumblebee slowed questioningly but didn't stop until Ratchet suddenly shouted, "Bumblebee! Where are you going!?"

Bumblebee slammed his brakes and idled there awkwardly; there was a long silence as Ironhide and Jazz rolled up to them. At length the other three transformed; Bumblebee followed suit after half a beat. "I know you're worried, but Optimus has it under control," Ratchet told the scout.

Bumblebee nodded his understanding, but before he could attempt to communicate his troubles his attention was drawn to the sound of a crashing vehicle. "Autobots! Relieve them of their weapons!" Optimus bellowed.

Attention brought back to the present situation, Bumblebee twisted around and spotted Optimus Prime on the other side of the highway, towering over an SUV that had been relieved of its roof. Sam and Mikaela sat in the backseat; men in suits were clustered all around the vehicle, and more were coming out of the other three cars, submachine guns clutched in their fingers. While the communication problem was imperative – for all he knew, Optimus had also been infected – the current situation was more immediate. Following his teammates, Bumblebee swung across the struts of the elevated railroad and flung himself out into open space, landing easily behind Ratchet and Ironhide. "Freeze," Ironhide ordered the humans, activating both of his forearm cannons; Ratchet loaded his own forearm weapon, and Bumblebee brought his pulse cannon online. Jazz revved up the directional electromagnet in his left arm, dragging the guns out of the men's hands to crush them in his fingers.

Sam seemed unhurt, much to Bumblebee's relief; he and Mikaela were both looking up at the Autobots with smiles on their faces. It was the first truly friendly look Bumblebee had gotten from Sam since the human had learned what he really was; it made his spark glow a little brighter.

He turned his attention to the man in the front seat of the ruined vehicle. "Hi there," the man said, sounding a little nervous but not truly alarmed. Bumblebee recognized his voice, having encountered it earlier in the night and several times over the last four years. _Agent Simmons _was his designation.

Optimus bent over him. "You're not afraid. Are you not surprised to see us?"

"Look, there are … S7 protocols. I'm not authorized to communicate with you, except to tell you that I'm not authorized to communicate with you," the man explained, his tone somewhere between awed and uncomfortable.

"_Get out of the car,"_ Optimus growled.

"Uh … me?" Simmons asked. "All of--?"

"NOW!"

"Okay! Okay, get out of the car!" Simmons twisted around and let himself out of what was left of the car door; the other man climbed out on his side, and Sam and Mikaela both climbed out as well. Mikaela was no longer in the handcuffs Ratchet had noted being applied to them earlier, and she helped Sam out of his handcuffs too.

"Oh, so now you're good with handcuffs too?" Sam asked, his tone arch. He had never applied that tone to Mikaela before in Bumblebee's hearing, and Bumblebee had been present for most of their communication. The Autobot was puzzled, and he cocked half an audio receptor to their conversation.

"You weren't supposed to hear all that," Mikaela said wearily. So this was a continuing conversation from before.

"Yeah," Sam snapped.

"Look," Mikaela said, a tiny smile on her face. "I've got a record because I wouldn't testify against my dad. When have you ever had to give up anything in your perfect little life?"

A record? She wasn't referring to the old black discs humans had once stored music on, or a recording. Another application of the word referred to criminal offenses. Bumblebee felt a brief moment of misgiving: had he encouraged Sam to a female who was potentially dangerous? He should have done more research on this Mikaela.

But on the other hand, it sounded as if she had received a criminal record because she regarded familial ties above the law. The concept was odd – almost impossible for the scout to comprehend. His team was a law unto themselves, by both isolation and nature. Cybertronian society pointed its citizens to function first, and there were no 'families' other than teams and cohort brothers, which were formed according to 'law' as it existed on Cybertron. It was impossible to show greater loyalty to 'family' than to 'law' because they were one and the same. Not so, perhaps, for humans.

Her accusation to Sam was perhaps too accurate, for the boy flinched at its truth. Bumblebee knew sacrifice and would not have wished it on the child, but it seemed Mikaela's point was made. Sam dropped his head for a moment, grimaced, and then nodded to her. "Sorry," he said.

"It's okay," she answered. Then, with mutual unspoken agreement, they both turned on Simmons, who was busy mouthing off at Optimus Prime. Optimus was silent, ignoring the man's ranting.

"What is Sector Seven?" A pertinent question indeed, Bumblebee thought: logically they were the part of the military dedicated to hunting down Bumblebee, and likely knew something of Megatron and the Allspark.

Simmons stared at Sam for a moment. "I'm the one that asks the questions around here. Not _you_, young man!" Even powerless the man acted as if he had complete control.

Mikaela ignored this. "How do you know about the aliens?"

"Where did you take my parents?" Sam added.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that. Suddenly you're a big man with all your alien friends around, huh."

Bumblebee glanced at Optimus Prime, wondering if he was going to bring the impromptu interrogation to a halt or take over himself (he would, by sheer intimidation factor, be a much more effective interrogator). But Optimus was silent, looking at the other Autobots for the moment, and they were all glancing at one another. A commlink communication, then. Bumblebee was a little stung by the realization of what he had lost thanks to that mini glitch Frenzy. _I'll punt him to the Earth's moon next time I see him, _he thought darkly.

"Where is Sector Seven?" Sam demanded.

Simmons smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know."

And it only added to his frustration that Simmons, a man who had chased him and shot at him for several years running now, and the only one with the ability to communicate what Sam, Mikaela, and the Autobots wanted to know, was standing there smugly, even while unarmed and in the face of Optimus Prime!

_What is it the humans say? Payback is a bitch, _Bumblebee thought, gazing down at the back of the man's head. He popped open his waste hatch, the irony of its location in relation to a human's urinary tract not lost on him.

"Bee, you really gonna--?" Jazz asked aloud in Cybertronian as Bumblebee began to sprinkle waste hydraulics on the man's head and back. He started laughing at the act; Ironhide snickered as well, and even Ratchet's faceplates lifted in amusement. Sam and Mikaela both gaped and Sam covered his mouth.

Simmons' shock was visible in the tension of his shoulders. "Hey! Hey! Get that thing to stop!"

"Bumblebee, stop lubricating on the man," Optimus Prime ordered after a long moment, allowing the act to go on far too long for what was probably dignified.

Bumblebee shrugged and shut the hatch. "Serves him right," he attempted: a dual-toned whine was what came out. Ratchet cycled his vents in annoyance, but Bumblebee felt as if some of his processors had been relieved of a load. It was always fun to find ways to insult the enemy without speech. Sam was busily relieving the other men of their handcuffs and strapping them on wrists, linking the 'Sector Seven' agents together. It was a clever move, something the Autobots could not do without risking serious harm to the humans.

"All right, big man, take it off," Mikaela said when the fun was over.

"What?" Simmons demanded. "Take what off?" Unfortunately, the treatment had not reduced the man's arrogance one iota.

"Your clothes. All of them."

"Why? What for!?"

Mikaela drew a breath. "For threatening my dad." Which explained where Sam had heard about this 'record'. Mikaela's father must have been the one who committed the actual criminal offense. Remembering that Mikaela's father was the one who had taught Mikaela about cars, Bumblebee wondered where the offense came in. He was not well versed in human laws (save the laws of the road).

Simmons began spewing insults and threats, but he did as ordered, stripping off his jacket, tie, shirt, and pants to stand at a lamppost in a sleeveless shirt and his shorts. Sam handcuffed his wrists around the lamppost. "I will hunt you down," Simmons warned.

"Yeah, okay," Sam said dismissively. He wrapped one arm around Mikaela's shoulders, a human gesture of comfort, and the two of them walked confidently towards the Autobots. Happy to see harmony restored between the two, Bumblebee shifted his focus back to Optimus, attempting to get his attention without words.

But Ironhide grabbed the attention first. "Optimus! Incoming!"

Bumblebee twisted around to look behind himself; to his amazement, helicopters were visible in the distance, preceded by a host of black Sports Utility Vehicles like those of the Sector Seven agents. _Already? This is too fast. How did they manage that!?_ If Sector Seven had been this efficient four years ago, Bumblebee would have long ago been captured.

Ironhide rolled forward and jammed his cannon into the ground. The EMP he released washed out Bumblebee's sensors with static and a harsh buzz for several seconds, but it was far more devastating to the approaching vehicles; their engines died. The humans inside panicked and braked, creating a jam of cars that slowed the unaffected cars behind them.

"Autobots, roll out," Optimus ordered, stepping forward and over Sam and Mikaela protectively. Bumblebee read in the gesture that he was not to take the children with him this time; he transformed and followed the rest of his team along the road that led to the railroad bridge, expecting Optimus to pursue them.

But the leader of the Autobots did not; Bumblebee saw him scoop Sam and Mikaela up and start to run, still in bipedal form, in the opposite direction. _What is he doing!?_ The decision made no visible sense. If he wished to distract the agents then why was he taking Sam and Mikaela along with himself? Or did he think they would pursue the alt-forms while he found a hiding place?

The Sector Seven vehicles still moving did not pursue the alt-formed Autobots, however: they followed Optimus, chasing him under the bridge and towards the commercial district barely one hundred meters ahead. Bumblebee thought of the threats Simmons had issued to the children.

He dropped two gears to accelerate, drawing up behind Jazz so quickly the communications specialist had to swerve. "Bumblebee!" he bellowed in Cybertronian. Bumblebee chirruped at him and raced away, cutting towards the canal.

"Come back here, soldier!" Ironhide shouted as well, his voice just carrying over the scout's engine. Bumblebee, unable to reply in any way, didn't even slow down.

Optimus was in his sights. He took a parallel road, familiar with this district as with all of Tranquility, watching as helicopters tailed his leader; the Prime ran carefully, not stepping on a single car even in his haste. He turned a corner and Bumblebee followed directly, swerving wildly between stopped cars, the humans inside shouting at each other in fury or awe. When he realized that Optimus' destination was the bridge over the local canal, however, he switched directions; Optimus had used this hiding tactic before, combining the tendency of small biological creatures to not look up with the inability of their flying machines to fly low. He would slip into the bridge struts.

As he sailed over the edge of the cement blockades that lined the canal it occurred to the Autobot that Prime had probably issued pertinent orders over the commlink that would explain this decision, but the thought fell right out of his processors when he saw what was happening; a helicopter passing under the bridge, and Mikaela dangling under the struts, gripping a thin human arm desperately as she struggled not to fall. _Sam! Mikaela! _Bumblebee downshifted and raced forward, his focus narrowed down to the two humans.

Mikaela fell.

Sam fell right behind her.

Optimus Prime's feet suddenly swung into view as the leader of the Autobots attempted to break the humans' fall, but even though both humans bounced off the metal, neither could get a grip fast enough.

Bumblebee transformed, skidding forward on the ground by sheer momentum, and leapt.

His hands closed on the humans barely in time to save them from a sudden stop on the cement below them, but whether he had saved them from death he didn't know; human bones could snap so easily and his hands were metal. He landed roughly on his chestplates, spinning uncontrollably as he clutched them both off the ground.

As he came to a stop he could see both Sam and Mikaela's chests heaving; they were alive. Bumblebee's vents cycled in a sigh of relief. He carefully put the humans down on their feet and returned his focus outward towards the helicopters circling in the sky, climbing to his feet.

The focus of the Sector Seven humans had promptly switched over to where Bumblebee was, a lone Autobot standing in the open a good fifty meters from the bridge. Bumblebee's first instinct was to break for the bridge's cover, but the idea was rendered moot when he spotted a large spearheaded weapon headed in the direction of the children. Presumably their target was Bumblebee, but their aim was so poor the scout had little choice but to leap in front of them. The harpoon bounced off his forearm plates, deflected, but he realized too late that it was attached to a long steel cord. It looped around his arm and the serrated blades of the harpoon caught in the joints of his plating; as the helicopter the cord was attached to flew by, Bumblebee was yanked off-balance, twisted around against his will.

With a shout of dismay Bumblebee struggled to plant his feet and haul back, fighting against the flying machine that dragged him along the ground. His other arm outstretched for balance, Bumblebee did not even see the second harpoon that looped his other wrist, only felt its impact. He whipped his head around; the source was a second helicopter, which flew in the opposite direction. Bumblebee's arms were pulled inexorably apart, stretched outwards to either side of him, and he could get no traction on the smooth cement to pull them back in. _Primus, no!_

A third harpoon struck him in the back of the knee, the blades slicing deeply into unprotected gears and wiring. It threw Bumblebee to the ground, his vocal processors grating together as warnings and errors assaulted his optics and audio receptors – coolant lines breached, gears destroyed, he was easy pickings for the final harpoon that wrapped around his only unrestrained limb. Bumblebee fell on his chestplates, well and truly caught.

"Optimus! _Optimus!_" he shouted; of course the sounds he produced sounded nothing like the Prime's name. Panicking, he didn't even notice, staring at the bridge struts where he had last seen his leader. "Optimus, _help me!_"

There was no answer. If the Prime attempted to communicate with him via his commlink, the scout would never have known. Bumblebee struggled to bring his hands close enough together to pick at his restraints, but even though his self-repair modules were working overtime he was rapidly losing coolant through his leg joint. The sounds around him were overwhelming, helicopters and approaching cars with sirens, his sensitive audio receptors picking up the vestiges of conversation, and Sam and Mikaela screaming, screaming for the humans to stop, even as men ran from their cars and forced them to the ground.

"Run!" he tried to tell them; the sound he made was more like a pained screech that he barely registered. "Optimus! The children, at least! Get them away from here!" But nothing like real words escaped him, Cybertronian or English; the loss of his voice and Frenzy's virus had finally doomed himself and his charges. "_OPTIMUS!"_

He saw men approaching with large tanks of something or other on their backs. "Quickly, ice him! Ice him!" someone shouted, and the scout panicked again, shying away from the hoses they trained on him. _No! _What poured out smelled unmistakably of liquid nitrogen, and as soon as they brought it near his limbs yet more warnings popped up as reams of circuits, hydraulics, coolant lines, gears, self-repair processors, and transformation nodes began to go offline against his will. Cycling his vents, Bumblebee in-took air to counteract the freezing process to no avail. He cried out, mindlessly terrified, and struggled more violently. "Please, Optimus, _please! Answer me! _Jazz, someone, answer me!"The only thought in his head became _they're taking me to Megatron, they're going to put me in cryostasis right next to Megatron--!_

The cryostasis began to take hold rapidly, however, and his central processors shut down out of self-defense against the encroaching cold. Panic gave way to despair; when his arms were completely non-responsive he hung suspended between two helicopters, his chestplates inches from the ground. His EM sensors went offline and most of his audio receivers joined them, and Bumblebee's gaze fell on Sam again; the human was struggling violently against his captors, still screaming something that Bumblebee could no longer hear over the hiss of nitrogen. _I hope you're not in pain, _he thought sadly, and when his optics shut off, locking him into his spark and minutes away from stasis, he thought, _Not even for the children. Optimus … why?_

&

Cybertronian bodies were built to the task they were needed for, but two things remained constant in every design: a spark chamber (either inscribed or not inscribed with a radon signal) and a chronometer within the chamber. Both were the most heavily protected part of the Cybertronian physiology. Even in extreme heat (up to, in human terms, roughly 7000 degrees Farenheit) and extreme cold (a few degrees above absolute zero), the spark chamber and chronometer would remain intact and operable. In fact, the chronometer was meant to catalogue exactly how long the spark itself had been in existence, and in case of spark transfer to a new body they would be moved together.

This was how Bumblebee knew, when he began to come back online from cryostasis, only 29.86 breems had passed since his capture – roughly three hours.

Only his central processors had warmed up enough to boot up. Stasis was not like recharge; his energon was not freshly cycled, his capacitors were low from the extreme cold, and the damage he had sustained had not (to the best of his knowledge) been corrected, although on that last point Bumblebee could not be sure since his remote nodes were still offline. The sensation was not unlike if Ratchet had removed all of his limbs for maintenance at once, which Ratchet would never do. The thought amused him, his logic boards ticking over too slowly to fully comprehend the ridiculousness of the train of thought.

He could not see Sam or Mikaela. What Bumblebee _could_ see was gray and beige curved walls, massive military machines such as tanks, hundreds of computers, and the massively tall protoform Cybertronian standing on the far wall. _Megatron, _he thought, alarm making him shutter his optics several times. He should have guessed these humans were in league with him! It took him several seconds to recall that the humans had long ago _captured _the Decepticon leader, and the reason the former High Protector of Cybertron was standing so stiffly was because he was locked into cryostasis.

_I am the last and the first Cybertronian to see our Lord High Protector, _Bumblebee thought, insensibly amused by the thought. Then: _I should tell Optimus that Megatron is here. _He attempted to access his commlink and got a ream of errors in response; Bumblebee drew the conclusion that his internal radio was still too cold to operate. And the bed he was strapped down on (when had he been strapped down? Why? It wasn't as if he could go anywhere) was moving out of Megatron's room and down a tunnel. His EM sensors were still down, too, and most of his audio receptors weren't even responding to booting commands. The voices of the humans sounded like annoying buzzes at the moment.

But there were an awful lot of humans around, talking to each other in their single-tone language. Their mouths couldn't produce more than one tone at once. It made the sound monotonous, not at all like the multi-tones of Cybertronian.

Bumblebee had liked talking once. He missed his voice.

It occurred to the Autobot to wonder where Sam was. He wondered if Simmons was carrying through with his threats, but then again, he had already done that, hadn't he? He had hunted Sam and Mikaela down. Were they in custody as he was? What would Sector Seven do with them? They were only adolescents, not even considered full adults in human society; surely they would not harm the young of their own species. At least, not intentionally. And what of the eyeglasses? Sam had them on his person hours previous. Perhaps the other Autobots had come to Sam's rescue after Bumblebee had gone into stasis, but if so, why had they not rescued Bumblebee also?

"Optimus," he groaned. _Sksssht_ was what came out. _Slaggit. _Surely he had missed some important development while Sector Seven captured him expertly. Maybe there were just too many humans around and rescuing Bumblebee would have just gotten others captured as well. It would have been easier if the enemies were Decepticons, really – the Autobots were allowed to slag _them._

Something tapped his cerebral armor. Bumblebee lifted his chin to try and lay optics on the source, and he saw a human scuttle away from him nervously. "Is it fully restrained?" the human asked.

"With reinforced titanium, yes," acknowledged another human. "It's still halfway frozen. Sensors show no sign of electrical activity in its extremities. It can't do much more than move its head, yet."

"And that's exactly what I want to hear!" Exclaimed Simmons from somewhere Bumblebee couldn't see. The Autobot cycled his central vents in irritation, craning his neck to try and sight the agent. "Keep him down, boys. Liquid nitrogen is about the only thing that'll keep N.B.E.-2 in this room." His voice was approaching, and Bumblebee finally laid optics on the agent when he walked out from behind some equipment.

Simmons smiled at him, dressed now in dark army fatigues with a beret on his head. "Happy to see me?" he asked, crossing the room to a distance that none of the other humans were willing to dare; he patted Bumblebee's armor. The Autobot's broken voice capacitors clicked rapidly like a growl. "Yeah, I thought that's how you'd feel." He shook his head, the grin never leaving his face. "You know what really sucks, though? They told me that I can't pay that little hot criminal chick back for the whole stripping thing. Tit for tat, I always say: if she gets to see me in my undies, I should get to see her in hers. But my boss said no.

"So really, I'm glad it was you, N.B.E.-2. I'm really glad. I've been waiting to see what's inside you for _years_," the human continued with relish. "We're going to take you apart and put you back together to see what makes you tick. I'm really curious if you'll survive it. I mean, if you can really be considered alive."

The human leaned close, out of Bumblebee's optics range, to put his mouth close to where a human's ears would be. "Payback's a bitch, isn't it?" he asked in a stage whisper.

Bumblebee jerked his head to the side, towards the agent, in an attempt to knock him off his feet; Simmons danced away too fast for him, laughing. "Oh! Looks like your human buddies are arriving," Simmons added, looking at his watch and now removed to a safe distance. "Don't worry, I have lots of fun things planned for them as well." And with that, the agent walked from the room, laughing all the way.

_Sam and Mikaela! _Surely, _surely _Optimus' ban on killing sentient humans didn't include monsters like this one! Not that he could do much but glare, robbed of even the chance to spit invectives in the human's face. He thought them viciously: _I hope you get fragged in the back. I'll crush your limbs one by one and let you live with the pain. Fall into the Pit and die there!_

"Uh … _is _it alive?" a human was asking somewhere nearby.

"Debatable," responded another human, this one with a higher-pitched voice: a female. "Although it is a reasonable facsimile of life regardless, an extremely advanced form of AI. We aren't sure if they experience pain as we know it, if that's what you're concerned about." She paused, clapping her hands together. "Well, let's begin."

&

_External hardware detected. Interface y/n? Y_

_B/:System diagnostic_

_Encryption code required_

_B/:Override_

_WARNING: Override exposes interface to open communication with external sources. Continue y/n? Y_

_ENCRYPTION OVERRIDED_

_NEW ENCRYPTION DETECTED_

_B/:Override_

_ENCRYPTION OVERRIDED_

_B/:System diagnostic_

_Checking systems …_

_RADIO OFFLINE COMMLINK OFFLINE UPLINK OFFLINE SATTELITE LINK OFFLINE HOLOTECH OFFLINE REMOTE TRANSFORMATION NODE 2113 OFFLINE REMOTE SELF REPAIR NODE 2113 OFFLINE REMOTE SELF REPAIR NODE 0812 OFFLINE HYDRAULICS LEFT LEG OFFLINE LOGITAC OFFLINE TOPOTAC OFFLINE_

_02124 out of 10338 nodes reporting_

_B/:Boot HYDRAULICS_

_Booting HYDRAULICS …_

_ERROR: HYDRAULICS LEFT LEG OFFLINE. Continue y/n? Y_

_B/:Open chest plates_

_Command not recognized_

_B/:Open armor plates_

_Command not recognized_

_B/:HYDRAULICS command list_

_MOVE __EMPTY __FILL_

_ENCRYPTION KEY REQUESTED_

_B/:Override_

_ENCRYPTION OVERRIDED_

_B/:Move chest plates_

_Chest plates are now OPEN._

_WARNING: SPARK EXPOSED. EMERGENCY OVERRIDE IN … 5_

_B/:Terminate override_

_Emergency override terminated._

_WARNING: DANGEROUS LEVELS OF RADIATION DETECTED_

_WARNING: ELECTRICAL SURGE DETECTED_

_WARNING: CAPACITOR NODES 1 THROUGH 388 AT EMERGENCY LEVELS_

_WARNING: SPARK CHAMBER BREACHED_

_WARNING: DANGER OF OFFLINING DETECTED. EMERGENCY OVERRIDE IN … 5_

_B/:Terminate override_

_Emergency override terminated._

_WARNING: CRITICAL SURGE IN SPARK CHAMBER_

_WARNING: EMERGENCY OFFLINING IN … 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … 0_

_ERROR: INTERFACE TERMINATED MESSAGE 0 SUBJECT OFFLINE_

&

Point in fact: Cybertronians did not experience pain as humans did. In humans, pain was a warning system against danger (too hot, too cold, sharp) and an alert to prevent further damage than that which was already dealt. Transformers did not traditionally 'feel', in fact, although pressure plating and sensors could produce a similar effect. Bumblebee's broken voice processors produced something a Cybertronian might have referred to as pain when he tried to speak, mostly because he could not identify precisely what the nature of damage was internally (it was like too much pressure, registering as discomfort). But Cybertronians had a more computer-like way of processing damage on the whole, mostly in the form of visual and auditory warnings and error messages.

When Bumblebee's central systems once again began to come online, he felt as if something had drained his capacitors dry. His optics refused to focus properly and his audio sensors provided a thin film of static over every sound; his LOGITAC programs were slow to boot. Energon cycled reluctantly and his distributor fired out of sync several times, producing an unpleasant sensation of electrical overload. He became aware (only by visual confirmation) that his left arm and digits was jerking slightly, although he couldn't assess why the hydraulics were malfunctioning to the point of visible involuntary movement. His chronometer indicated lost time and his memory banks were corrupted.

When the spark chamber warnings began to pop up on his optics, he understood a little better. Anger suffused his circuits. Not even Decepticons messed with another Cybertronian's spark for the sake of torture; these humans, foolishly playing around with what they did not know, had unknowingly come dangerously close to offlining him forever.

"Is it awake?"

"It appears to be waking, yes."

"Good. I want to remove one armor plate – only one – to compare its molecular makeup to that of N.B.E.-1's armor, and if possible, I want a look at some of the extremities, to see what allows it to fold into a different shape. We know this one can turn into a Camaro, after all." Bumblebee twisted his head to look at the speaking human; it was a short man with dark hair and a slight build, his skin very pale. The man gazed back at him, his eyes glassy as he chewed on the end of a writing instrument. "How does it do that? How can it take on a virtually perfect appearance of our own vehicles? And all reports say they can do this virtually instantly …"

Something was interfacing with him against his will: a primitive thing, but effective nonetheless. Bumblebee began to write code rapidly, struggling to kick the intrusion out of his software, but somehow the interface overrode the encryption walls the Autobot tried to throw up. He watched with wide optics as his left arm hissed, hydraulics Bumblebee currently had no control over opening his armor plating and exposing it to the humans; they pried the armor upwards, digging their thin little fingers into the wiring there and muttering to one another, prodding a self-repair node.

His memory banks finished cleaning out the corrupt data; information Bumblebee could have done without flooded his cerebral processors.

Panic seized him. The scout threw his weight towards the opposite side of the table, struggling to escape for a desperate moment despite LOGITAC telling him it was a useless effort. He couldn't be sure if it was LOGITAC any more; his hardware and software was utterly breached, some primitive computer holding more control over his limbs than Bumblebee himself. _Let me out! Leave me alone!_ He cried out, limbs trembling from feedback; the only satisfying result was how the humans digging into his restrained arm scattered.

He was vaguely aware of the door banging open over the constant hiss of liquid nitrogen, but his audio sensors lifted when he heard a familiar voice shouting, "Stop! _Stop!"_

_Sam?_

The restraints that had held him down snapped away from his arms and legs; Bumblebee halfway sat up, his arm moving at his command even though he felt no pressure and the self-repair nodes in the arm refused to online themselves. He ripped the myriad of cords plugged into his central interface out of his hardjack furiously, bringing up a furious series of ERROR: UPLINK TERMINATED messages. He ignored this, twisting around to look at his charge.

Sam stood in front of him, looking unharmed and healthy as ever; Mikaela stood by his side, also visibly unhurt. Sam had his arms outstretched in a placating position. For a long moment Bumblebee couldn't believe his optics; he shuttered them rapidly. "You all right?" Sam asked. "They didn't hurt you, right?"

The reminder that he was in a room full of hostiles galvanized the Autobot into action. Even Simmons was in the room, staring up at him with that half-smirk of his. Bumblebee slammed his faceguard down, locked every armor plate into place, and uploaded his plasma cannon; human though they were, he would slag them all in an instant if it got Sam, Mikaela, and himself out of this horrendous Pit-inspired place.

"Listen to me. The Cube is here and the Decepticons are coming," Sam said, staring at him. The entire room was completely silent except for distant sounds and Bumblebee's loaded and ready plasma cannon.

Bumblebee swung his legs over the side of the table he had lay upon. _The Cube. The Allspark. It's here. _He couldn't sense it, though, which seemed odd until he remembered his EM sensors were still completely offline. He hesitated for barely a moment before remembering to keep his weapon trained on the hostiles.

"No no no, don't worry about them. They're not gonna hurt you," Sam said.

_Assessment: he has no idea. _Bumblebee got to his feet and backed away towards the far wall, refusing to unarm himself. Even Optimus would forgive him for this. The sensation of walking was surreal with his pressure plates and self-repair nodes offline; his left leg nearly buckled under him and Bumblebee shifted his weight to his right side, remembering belatedly the harpoon that had torn up his gears.

"Just back away," Sam continued, now talking to his fellow humans. "No, no, don't shoot, he's okay, he's friendly. He's fine."

_I _was. _Now I am not so sure. _But Sam was unhurt, as was Mikaela, and Sam claimed the Allspark was here. He reassessed the situation, letting slowed LOGItac processors slowly click through the available data. The final assessment that came out was that the humans could not be trusted and he would be foolish to not scoop Mikaela and Sam up and blast his way out. But the Autobot recalled with sudden clarity an event from only a few hours before the present: Sam, climbing into his interior, and declaring, "I trust him."

It was Bumblebee's turn to trust Sam. He raised his faceplate armor and began to power down his cannon.

"Okay. Okay," Sam said, visibly relaxing along with the rest of the humans, their shoulders slumping and several of them letting out soft sighs. "We're gonna take you to the Allspark."

Bumblebee nodded. One of the humans fiddled with a computer; Bumblebee automatically checked to make sure he wasn't hardlined into their system any longer before one of the walls of the room slid open with a soft hiss. The opening created was large enough to admit the Autobot as well as the humans.

"Follow me," said a tall thin man with a mustache in a suit, jogging out the door; Sam beckoned for Bumblebee to follow by waving a hand. Mikaela flashed him a tight smile before following the other humans at a run. Bumblebee staggered after them, his left leg uncooperative. Thankfully, the humans he did not know gave him a wide berth. Even Simmons seemed wary, distancing himself from the scout. They walked/ran down a tunnel, through a ream of equipment that reminded Bumblebee distantly of the scientific labs on Cybertron, and then around a corner and into the most awe-inspiring sight Bumblebee had laid optics on for twelve thousand Earth years: the Allspark.

No one knew where the Allspark had come from on Cybertron; they only knew that it gave life. The only beings to directly interface with the Cube were the Prime and whatever machinery about to be given a spark. Cybertron itself had been inexorably linked with it, terraforming the planet on its own and at the Prime's request. From the Allspark had come their written language and it inscribed the beginnings of their coding and programming in their processors. All Cybertronians were inexorably linked to the Cube, and at one time, thus inexorably linked with one another.

When Megatron had thought to take control of the Cube's usage, thousands had died in its defense and in the attempt to take it; Cybertronians were not so numerous as to take such a loss lightly. Optimus, desiring to remove the single greatest incitement to the infighting, had jettisoned the Cube 144 vorns ago, but he had underestimated Megatron's desire for the Allspark; Megatron had followed it, and the fight had merely spread across the galaxy, Cybertron itself abandoned by its kind.

And now, here in the middle of relative nowhere in terms of the galaxy as they knew it, the Allspark sat hidden under a great structure created by these tiny biological creatures. The end of it all, and only Bumblebee of all the Autobots knew where it was.

He approached at a limp, a reverent sound of awe rasping through his processors. It was taboo to touch the Allspark, but Sam had said the Decepticons were coming, and Megatron was also in this facility – frozen, yes, but the coming Decepticons would quickly put an end to that. It had to be moved. Bumblebee climbed laboriously onto the pedastal upon which the Allspark rested and reached up to touch the source of his abused spark.

Faster than Bumblebee's sluggish cerebral processors could follow, the Cube directly interfaced with his spark. Diagnostics scrolled past his optics rapidly, the symbols and numbers not entirely sensible, the Allspark assessing his systems as if it knew him better than Bumblebee knew himself. Almost instantly every one of his nodes came online, including fifteen nodes in his throat that had not issued a diagnostic report since Megatron had crushed his vocal processors. His EM sensors were drowned out by the Allspark's signal; Frenzy's virus was wiped from his systems and his internal radio came online with a screech of static. Self-repair nodes, feeding off electrical impulses from the Cube, rapidly repaired all fixable damage done to his leg, his spark chamber, his holotech, and to Bumblebee's amazement, his long-destroyed voice. The repair nodes in his neck came online and began their work, and a flood of information suddenly hit Bumblebee's processors like a hammer to the head: the spoken language programs.

Impossibly, his language motherboard had been repaired.

Into the infinity that was the Allspark Bumblebee issued a sheepish query: _Can you be moved?_

The Allspark responded in the affirmative: _Commencing compaction._

By all rights a cube of that size should have been incredibly heavy. Somewhere – perhaps Optimus Prime, even – Cybertronian scientists knew its mass. The scout was not one of those Cybertronians. But when the Allspark finished folding down to a square foot, it rested in Bumblebee's hands easily, hardly heavier than sandstone cut to the same size. _Compaction complete._

_Thank you, _Bumblebee sent reverently.

The Allspark did not answer, sparking against his fingers and giving him a tingling sensation. It ended the interface, leaving Bumblebee more put together than he had been in twelve thousand years.

The Autobot finally turned his attention outwards again, looking down at the humans gathered near his feet. How ironic that his captors would also bring his whole race its salvation.

It was time to take the Cube away to someplace safe. Hopefully the other Autobots were somewhere nearby and Bumblebee would be able to communicate with them via shortwave radio once they were out of the human fortress. Final diagnostics messages warned him his vocal processors were still offline, undergoing continuing internal repairs. But his radio was restored, and Bumblebee cycled across the airwaves, picking up various human stations: _"Message from Starfleet, Captain," _he told the humans. _"Let's get to it!"_

_Tbc_

_I hope the irony of the title is not lost on anyone. To answer any questions about the Allspark, I'm offering up the idea that Bumblebee can understand speech but cannot actually produce speech, a problem similar to aphasia (where one will replace words with nonsensical words without realizing it): Even if Bumblebee __**could**__ talk, he would only produce nonsensical sounds. The Allspark corrected that problem, but the rest of the damage is extensive enough and old enough that it will take a little longer to fix._

_Also, the original alt-form I gave Bumblebee (Beige brown-canvas-top 1993 Buick Lesabre) is secretly the car I owned up until three years ago. That Buick was my baby. I knew he'd never let me die inside him. It also is approximately the same size and shape as a 1976 Chevrolet Camaro._

_Thanks to all the reviewers: Skittles the Sugar Fairy (This was the chapter you've been looking forward to: what did you think?), Hellfirefanatic (I'm glad my rendition of that scene was just as funny to you as in the movie!), Geekgirl (Poor Bumblebee. He takes some serious beatings in this movie), Rena1 (I'm glad you liked the added interactions. I really adored how much personality we got to see from each robot in that scene), and FinalFantasyNovel (I'm so flattered somebody recced this fic to you!). I really appreciate how you all leave more than single-line reviews, too: really, you have no idea how much._

_Next chapter, Bumblebee discovers just how badass Mikaela is._

_Thanks again for reading! Please review!_


	8. Our Work is Never Over

**Chapter 7: Our Work is Never Over**

_But his radio was restored, and Bumblebee cycled across the airwaves, picking up various human stations: "Message from Starfleet, Captain," he told the humans. "Let's get to it!"_

"He's right," said a young man dressed in army fatigues with blue optics and short-cropped hair. The name LENNOX was printed on his shirt. "If we stay here we're screwed with Megatron in the other hangar. Mission City is 22 miles away – we'll hide the Allspark somewhere in the city."

"Yes! He's right," agreed another older man in a suit, pointing at Lennox.

_In a populated human city? _Bumblebee cocked his head curiously, unsure of the tactic, but he didn't know the location. Perhaps it was an easily defensible point? Certainly it would provide cover for the Autobots in the sense that their alt-modes would make them indistinguishable from other cars. But the scout didn't pretend to be a tactician, and after the disastrous implications of his failure to comply with Optimus' orders, he wasn't going to be questioning anyone any time soon.

"But we cannot make a stand without the Air Force," Lennox continued.

"This place must have some kind of radio link," the older man said to Simmons.

Simmons nodded. He wasn't smiling any more; his eyes were still wide open (it seemed that was his natural state) but he was serious. "Yes. Shortwave, CB," he agreed.

"Yes! We can use that!" the older human exclaimed.

Bumblebee made a querying sound. _Why must you use shortwave? _The Decepticons had cut off Autobot communications via satellite uplink, not … _Ah!_ The scout straightened in realization, his optics widening. Frenzy's virus had not been so shortsighted as to prevent the uplink of a lone Autobot scout on Earth; it was designed to cut out _human _communication as well! Humans relied heavily on their technology to communicate over long distances, so such a virus was a great blow. It would be especially difficult to organize their military into any concentrated effort against the Decepticons.

"What? What is it?" Sam asked, drawing Bumblebee's attention. Bumblebee shook his head and wrapped his hand around his throat. "Oh … guess you can't really tell me." Bumblebee nodded. "Is it important?" Bumblebee shook his head again; the humans already knew all this, it seemed. "Oh. Okay."

Lennox began to run towards one of military vehicles parked in the massive (now mostly empty) hangar. Bumblebee, sensing they were about to go on the move, folded down into his alt-form, gratified to feel his circuitry smoothly running; He shifted the Allspark easily to his back seat. "Find a way to communicate with them!" Lennox shouted. "Sam, get in the car! When we get to the city I'll find a radio and I'll have Epps vector them in!"

Sam climbed into Bumblebee's driver seat, his weight now as familiar and comfortable as anything could be after only a few days; Mikaela climbed into the passenger's seat. Lennox's plan to get to the city came into focus with the announcement that radios could be retrieved there: communication would be absolutely key here.

"Are you … are you doing okay?" Sam asked.

Bumblebee wasn't sure if he was talking to Mikaela or the car; when there was a moment of silence following the question, Bumblebee offered a positive chirrup. He started his engine; it purred to life, sublime and clean as the first day he came online. The radio waves graciously provided him with a song: _"Harder, better, faster, stronger … more than ever hour after our work is never over!" _He shifted into drive and peeled out of the tunnels, the route out not taking him past Megatron (much to his relief).

Mikaela laughed a little nervously. "No kidding, huh?" She shifted in her seat. "What's … what's going to happen?"

"They're … I guess they're going to have a giant alien robot war," Sam answered, his voice cracking slightly. "Holy shit. We're really doing this." Although realistically, the humans shouldn't have been with Bumblebee at the moment. Although under orders to guard Sam, with Bumblebee carrying the Allspark he was bound to be the first Autobot the Decepticons attempted to take apart bolt by bolt. But he couldn't leave Sam or Mikaela behind with Megatron present, frozen or no, and he couldn't be certain of their safety if he deposited them elsewhere. Barricade at the very least knew Sam on sight, and Bumblebee wasn't sure the Decepticon was still in stasis lock. "Is the Cube okay?" Sam asked, leaning back in the seat.

Mikaela twisted around, grabbing the back of her seat. "Yeah."

"Hey, strap it in. Use the seatbelt," Sam suggested, and the two of them hung over their seats to fiddle with the Allspark and lock it in place.

A notification popped up: _Commlink opened: ENCRYPTION KEY: 1229874VCJ.288 Uplink Y/N? _The encryption was a familiar one, and Bumblebee enthusiastically accepted.

"_Bee!"_

"_Bumblebee, you're online!"_

"_Thank Primus, we thought you were slagged."_

"_Bumblebee. Welcome back."_

"_Don't let him fool you. You should've seen Optimus swerve all over the road when your EM signal popped up!"_

"_L'il 'bot, what's that treasure you got in your backseat?"_

_Everyone, _Bumblebee replied, gratified by their concern and relieved that Optimus hadn't been offlined by Frenzy's virus. He couldn't sense them – the Allspark sitting within him overwhelmed every EM signal for miles – but they were close enough for shortwave communication, and that was enough. _I have the Allspark STOP._

Silence greeted this as the momentous occasion was realized. Bumblebee let that sit in their processors for a few seconds before continuing. _I am currently on my way to Mission City with Sam, Mikaela, and various military members from the United States Armed Forces STOP. Decepticons are commencing attack on previous Allspark location and will likely soon follow it to me STOP. Requesting backup STOP._

"_As though you have to ask," _Ironhide growled.

"_Naturally, it is granted," _Optimus replied. _"But a city is heavily populated. Why there?"_

_The humans have lost longwave and satellite communication as we have STOP, _Bumblebee explained. _They require flight-capable backup to effectively fight, but to obtain communication devices they must travel into the city STOP. I am reluctant to leave their protection with Sam and Mikaela in tow STOP. _He hesitated for a moment before adding; _Megatron is currently contained in the Allspark's previous location STOP. Optimus, it is highly likely he will be online within the hour STOP._

"_I see," _Optimus said gravely. _"Very well. Bumblebee, what is your current location?"_

_Traveling west on Route 93 towards Las Vegas at roughly 55 miles per hour STOP. Expected turnoff: Route 166 North towards Mission City STOP._

"_We will intercept you in two minutes, then," _Optimus reported.

"_Listen up, Autobots!" _Ironhide jumped in. _"As per Bumblebee's previous uplinks we know Barricade, Starscream, Hardtop, and Megatron have all made landfall on this continent. Frenzy, the little slagger, may or may not be present. At least one other flight-capable Decepticon was on another continent as of 72 hours ago but that's plenty of time to get his fraggin' chassis over here. If tradition holds they're going to be military-grade alt-forms._

"_Bumblebee, be advised that Prime has ordered the Allspark be delivered to his spark chamber in case of imminent defeat."_

_What QUERY? Sir—_

"_The Allspark must either leave this planet or be visibly destroyed to save Earth from war." _Optimus cut him off. _"Or would you have these people be assaulted when we are destroyed and cannot aid in their protection and resistance?"_

_No, sir STOP._

"_I got your visual," _Jazz reported.

Bumblebee honked long and loud at the sight of his teammates ahead, startling Sam and Mikaela. Jazz responded in kind; Ratchet flashed his lights. As soon as the caravan of army trucks Bumblebee was currently leading had passed, they drifted into perfectly executed U-turns and followed. "It's Optimus," Sam shouted, waving furiously at the Autobots as they passed. "Hey! Hey, guys, you made it!"

"Makes me feel better," Mikaela confessed in a low voice. "But … but none of them can fly, and at least one of the Decepticons can. That's what Lennox said."

"Yeah, but, you know, Captain Lennox also said they were getting air backup. So the Air Force is totally going to be there," Sam pointed out.

"_I got you, babe," _Bumblebee offered in futile comfort, but Mikaela snorted.

"Thanks."

"Could you pick a _worse _song for a high-speed chase?" Sam groaned.

The Route 166 interchange with Route 93 was only three miles ahead; Las Vegas was visible on the horizon. The road began to widen out and merged with the main part of 93 that led straight into the large gambling city; roads crisscrossed, bridges in the sky.

"_I can't sense anything with the Allspark so close," _Ironhide grumbled.

"_If we are going to meet any Decepticons en route to our destination, this would be the place," _Ratchet observed.

"_Watch out for falling cars," _Jazz joked, moving up to flank Bumblebee. Ratchet and Ironhide fell back with Optimus Prime behind them, spreading to block every lane.

"_There's a cop car tailing me," _Ironhide reported irritably.

"Oh no," Sam said at almost the same time, hanging halfway out of Bumblebee's window. "It's the same cop car."

_It's Barricade EXCLAMATION! Move to intercept STOP, _Bumblebee warned. Ironhide and Ratchet both swerved across the road, cutting off the Decepticon scout's advance.

"ALL HAIL MEGATRON," bellowed a Cybertronian voice that was not Barricade's. Bumblebee couldn't see the source but his commlink came alive with communications:

"_Beige trawler established as Decepticon!"_

"_I think that's Bonecrusher! Slag, he's transforming. He's fast in protoform, Optimus; watch your back bolts!"_

"_Falling back to intercept! Your standing orders are to keep the Allspark out of Decepticon hands at all costs. I will come as soon as I can. Optimus out!" _Their commander signed out of the commlink.

"_Bee," _Jazz said, still flanking him. _"Show these fraggers what speed really is."_

Bumblebee was hardly the fastest Autobot in the army, but he was the fastest on Earth. He chirruped in the affirmative, downshifted, and accelerated away, pushing Sam and Mikaela back in their seats. He turned onto the Route 166 exit at 150 miles per hour and came off of it at 200 miles per hour, swerving between cars; Jazz was the only car still truly flanking him. _"Keep it up! The Decepticons are bein' held back by Ironhide and Ratchet. Humans aren't far behind. Exit's right there, yeah?" _And indeed it was; Bumblebee drifted around the ramp, Jazz in hot pursuit, and the two Autobots finally came to a screeching halt in a long line of traffic that led into downtown Mission City.

Humans were _everywhere. _There was no way to protect them all. _This was a bad idea STOP, _Bumblebee communicated.

"_Too late now." _Jazz abruptly switched to vocal communication and English. "Hey, kids, you keep yo' little asses in those seats. Bee'll keep ya safe. Don't you go runnin' off."

"I can't, I can't get over how he – he talks," Sam stammered. He leaned out of Bumblebee, his head turned towards the empty interior of the Pontiac Solstice. "I – okay. Okay, don't worry. We've gotta keep the Allspark safe, right?"

"That's right. That's your mission, got it?"

_I don't think keeping them near the Allspark is the best plan STOP, _Bumblebee grumbled.

"_An' that's why you earn your credits observin' and not plannin'," _Jazz answered smugly. _"They tough. They'll survive." _He paused. _"Looks like the calvary's comin' in to join us."_ And sure enough, as they slowly moved into the heart of Mission City, the army buggies, Ironhide, and Ratchet all came into view. Jazz pulled in front of Bumblebee abruptly. _"I'll scout ahead."_

"_Bonecrusher is down. Optimus is working his way here," _Ratchet reported. _"This doesn't look like a good place to pick a fight with Decepticons."_

"_Too late," _Ironhide growled, unknowingly repeating Bumblebee's conversation with Jazz. _"At least there's some cover from the slaggin' Seekers. 'Bee, anything to report?"_

_Traffic is an abomination STOP, _Bumblebee opined. _Jazz went on ahead to do recon STOP._

"_All right."_

"Hey, hey!" One of the buggies had pulled up aside Bumblebee and the human inside was waving at Sam or possibly the Camaro itself. "We've got the road blocked! Traffic's gonna clear out real soon! Pull over here and we'll set up a perimeter!"

"Wh, what's the plan for the Allspark?" Sam asked as Bumblebee obediently pulled over.

"We're going to attempt extraction by helicopter," the soldier shouted back. "Lennox is getting shortwave radios right now so we can communicate with the air strike when it comes! You just sit tight, you got it?" The soldier hopped out of the buggy and ran towards the other army vehicles.

_The humans plan to extract the Allspark by helicopter STOP, _Bumblebee notified the rest of his team.

"_Yeah? That's funny," _Ratchet groaned sarcastically_._

"_I like that last resort better than the Prime taking it up the spark," _Ironhide growled. _"We'll see if they get a chance to execute."_

Bumblebee popped his doors open; Sam and Mikaela correctly read that he wanted them to get out. He had to be ready to transform at a moment's notice. "Oh, grab the Cube, grab it," Sam gasped, scrambling in the backseat to pull the Cube from Bumblebee's interior. Bumblebee trilled his approval and Sam grinned hastily at him. "I'll watch this thing. I promise," Sam said.

An F-22 Raptor screamed overhead.

The humans immediately brought radios to their mouths, relaying information to their ally, but Bumblebee had a moment of what a human might have called _déjà vu. _He locked his wheels briefly in a surge of memory bank data from barely three weeks ago. _MAYDAY MAYDAY STARSCREAM AT 000 BEARING WEST STOP _he broadcasted.

"_Transform!" _Ironhide ordered, already unfolding to his protoform. "It's Starscream!" he bellowed aloud for the benefit of the humans. "Move to intercept! Bumblebee!" He waved an arm at the transforming scout; Bumblebee fairly leapt over his human charges to come to Ironhide's side, ignoring the suddenly screaming humans all around them. "He's coming back in for a second run now that he's got us on visual! What's his best weapon in alt-mode!?"

_I don't know STOP, _Bumblebee frantically transmitted.

"Then we're going to have to make do," Ironhide growled. He grabbed at the undercarriage of a fully-loaded tractor-trailer. Bumblebee hopped to the other side and helped lift the load lengthwise. "Brace yourself!" Bumblebee locked his gears into their position, looking up into the sky as his audio receptors picked up the faint whine of Starscream's approach. He laid visuals on the Seeker just as the Decepticon unleashed a missile.

"_ALL HAIL MEGATRON," _the Seeker declared as he flew overhead. It was the last sound Bumblebee heard before the missile struck.

Bumblebee was a light-armor mech. Fitted with an abundance of self-repair nodes, a secondary converter, and especially sensitive auditory and EM sensors, he was built for speed and long-term reconnaissance rather than head-to-head combat. This was probably why when the missile exploded at the base of the tractor-trailer he was holding up, Bumblebee went flying in one direction and his legs went flying in another.

Bumblebee's torso slammed into a truck, which in turn slammed into a storefront, the concussive force of the explosion washing his EM and external audio sensors out completely out for several minutes, which was why he knew the high-pitched whine and series of electronic sounds were internally based. Reams of error messages scrolled across his optics: _LOWER QUADRANT HYDRAULICS OFFLINE LOWER QUADRANT TRANSFORMATION NODES OFFLINE LOWER QUADRANT SELF-REPAIR NODES OFFLINE LOWER QUADRANT COOLANT OFFLINE LOWER QUADRANT CAPACITORS OFFLINE LOWER QUADRANT PRESSURE PLATES OFFLINE …_

The closest online repair nodes immediately began to attempt repairs; massive amounts of power were re-routed to tackle the problem. His coolant lines were cauterized shut from the sudden superheating that had slagged his legs below the knee. The circulation of electric power was broken and the rerouting effort was too slow. About the only good thing that could be said was that his energon cycle was mostly unharmed, a few minor leaks caused by flying shrapnel being repaired.

He shoved himself upright, visuals impaired by the smoke, but he could see his legs had been practically vaporized off of him. Sam and Mikaela both were flat on the ground in front of him, moving slowly but breathing. Around him numerous soldiers were staggering about, shouting, but Bumblebee's auditory receptors were malfunctioning too much to make sense of it. Starscream had moved on. His internal radio gave off bursts of static, obscuring the voices of his teammates: _"kksssht comin' right towards you man! Ratchet, I need bakkzzzn—"_

"_We're reEEEEK-k-k here, Bumblebee is bzzznt—"_

"_Where the slag is Opknnshhht!?"_

_I-I-I am down-n-n STOP, _Bumblebee transmitted, not sure if the message would get through at all. _L-L-Legs slag-g-g-ged STOP. Offl-l-lining-ing not-t-t immin-n-nent-t-t STOP. _At least, not imminent enough to spare anyone.

"_Bumblekssht," _Ratchet warned, _"You better EEEEK-spark online until I pssshhhht you!"_

_Yesssss s-s-si-rrr STOP._

"Oh my god. Bumblebee, your legs," Sam moaned. Bumblebee shuttered his optics and looked up to realize Sam was staring at him despondently, clutching his head and making calming motions. The Allspark was not on him, although his EM sensors, erratic though their reports were, told him it was nearby.

His motion jerky with misfiring electrical impulses, his hydraulics seizing randomly, the scout leaned forward and fell on his hands and chestplates; he whined with pain. "Aw, no, stay there," Sam groaned, but Bumblebee ignored him, pulling himself towards the boy, one elbow over another. "Come on, just – you-y-you're okay."

"Sam. Sam, the Allspark," he tried, but his voice was not online yet: a dipping multi-tone that sounded like the amount of discomfort he was in emerged instead. The human backed away from him as if beckoning for Bumblebee to come closer; the Autobot slammed his fist down in frustration.

This was hardly the first time Bumblebee had lost a limb in combat; he had particularly bad luck with his left arm, which had been torn off by Swindle during his captivity and interrogation in those last orns on Cybertron, and succinctly destroyed twenty-two vorns later on a nameless planet in battle with Hardtop and Sunstorm. It was funny how even though his memory banks were fully functioning, he forgot every time how much it hurt.

"Come on, get up," Sam pleaded as if it was possible for Bumblebee to do so. "Ratchet!" He screamed over his shoulder. But the medic wouldn't have time to come, not in an all-out battle with no backup coming.

"_Ratkkkst! Where's that bkk-k-zznt—"_

"Holy shit that tank just fired on us!"

"_Come on, Decepticon scum! Try and take me down!"_

Bumblebee groaned aloud, giving up on movement for the moment as he tried to manually override his self-repair circuits. It was made difficult by the electrical misfires. Slowly, slowly his processors accepted each individual manual command entered by Bumblebee's cerebral processors, dropping electrical activity in his legs amp by single amp. "Get up, get up! You're okay!" Sam cried, scrambling along backwards as Bumblebee once again began to drag himself along, struggling towards where his EM sensors told him the Allspark rested.

"I'm not going to leave you," Sam said reverently to Bumblebee.

Bumblebee looked at him sadly. _Sam, your courage is admirable. _But the human would not be able to protect a disabled 16.3-foot-tall Cybertronian; he could, however, protect the Cube.

The dust and smoke cleared enough for Bumblebee to see the Allspark resting safely three feet from Sam's leg.

It was a horrible thing to ask of Sam. Jazz and Bumblebee had both charged the boy with the Allspark as more of an honorable ideal with the full expectation that Bumblebee would be the one guarding them both. However, the Autobots were sorely outnumbered. Megatron had single-handedly taken down half a dozen of Ironhide's cohort alone back on Cybertron and now he was coming here, a thought that would have overloaded Bumblebee's processors if they hadn't already been locked up with his injuries. The Prime seemed to still be held up outside the city and Bumblebee was out of commission. Starscream was in the sky and the unnamed Decepticon from Quatar was doubtless around; Barricade hadn't yet put in an appearance, but a Decepticon with a tank alt-form was apparently just around the corner. There was no one to spare to protect the Allspark. And tactically, Bumblebee knew that the Allspark in the hands of a human was something the Decepticons would never conceive of. They always underestimated the small and the organic.

With great effort Bumblebee reached for the Allspark. It did not interface with him this time, lying dormant in his hands. The Autobot knew it would have been too much to ask of the Cube: even the Allspark couldn't magically restore armored plates and transformation nodes. He carefully and reverently placed the Cube in Sam's hands, pressing it gently to his chest. This _is your responsibility, not me._

Sam looked bewilderedly back and forth between the Allspark and Bumblebee, his eyes growing wide as he realized what the scout was asking of him. "I … what …?" he asked.

A vehicle approached from behind. Bumblebee's head jerkily turned to see what was going on, even as Sam jumped to his feet. "Sam!"

It was Mikaela, driving a tow truck. It screeched to a halt at Bumblebee's side, its rear bed lying a few feet away. "Sam, help me with this," she gasped.

The battle was raging on around them; Bumblebee's internal radio chattered to him. _"Megatron! Megatkkksht is hrrnnn! Retreat, fzztck!"_

"_Little tied up with Brraak-k-kzzzow!"_

"_sshhhhhhty limits now! Ratchet, Irzzssht, report!"_

"_GET IN HERE RICKHHHH SLAG NOW, OPTISSSZZT!"_

_Megatron. _He was only a couple of blocks away at the most. The scout had a horrible imagination of what the Decepticon leader would do if it found him here with Sam, Mikaela, and the Allspark, and his frame trembled with a series of electrical misfires.

"Bumblebee," Sam said, bringing the Autobot's attention outwards again. "Can you get yourself onto that?" He pointed at the flatbed on the tow truck.

Bumblebee nodded slowly, a series of clicking sounds emanating from him. He couldn't do anything to help in battle right now, not immobile and malfunctioning like this. He watched Sam take the Allspark and place it carefully on the edge of the flatbed before he turned back to the Autobot. "Okay. I think you need to be facing backwards. Is that okay?"

Bumblebee shrugged. He heaved upwards, bracing his thighs and knees on the ground, and managed to roll himself onto his back; from there he planted his hands and elbows and struggled to sit upright again. To his surprise he felt small hands applying pressure to his back and a shoulder against his own much larger one: Sam and Mikaela both offering their own small strength to aid him. He trilled his appreciation as the humans panted with effort, but soon enough he was upright and scooting himself backwards onto the tow truck.

"Okay," Mikaela gasped, planting her hands on her knees and taking fast, hard breaths. "I gotta say I've never rigged up a giant robot to a tow truck."

"I've got an idea," Sam said, climbing up next to Bumblebee. He patted the scout's forearm. "You're all right," he said, flashing Bumblebee a quick, frightened smile.

The Autobot realized that Sam was trying to comfort him in a very human kind of way – with touches and empty reassurances of safety. Cybertronians would never lie and say something was all right when it wasn't, and touch meant far less to a race like theirs, with armored plates protecting anything that might have been sensitive to the sensation beyond pressure. It was a kindness, though, and Bumblebee nodded his agreement despite knowing it was anything but 'all right'.

"Give me that chain," Sam said to Mikaela. "Wrap it around his waist, here--!" The humans commenced strapping him down to the tow truck.

His internal manual rerouting of electrical power had finally created the curious sensation of 'numb limb' as Ratchet called it – the sensation that a limb that had been lost was still there, and that there was no pain. The error messages disappeared as his logic processors automatically wrote code that suggested the destroyed nodes were supposed to be offline. The rerouted power stabilized his other systems and movement. In a human it might have been likened to the release of endorphins, dulling the discomfort of injury to a bearable level. His radio ceased to suffer from so much electrical feedback, clearing the signal.

"_Jazz! Slag it, Megatron grabbed him!"_

"_I see him! Engaging Megatron!"_

"_Slagging fragger from the Pit! You want a piece of me!? You want a—nnnrrgh---KSSSSSSSH—" SIGNAL LOST ERROR 183Y325.288 SUBJECT OFFLINE_

Bumblebee could still feel Mikaela and Sam moving around him, carefully rigging him to not fall off his new set of 'legs' – could still hear the soldiers shouting at each other and running by, desperately struggling against monsters not of their world. But for several long seconds, Bumblebee's entire focus narrowed down to that single error flashing across his commlink information.

_Jazz. _It was possible he had just received damage serious enough to send him into sudden stasis lock – likely, even – but this was Megatron. The only reason he hadn't killed Bumblebee all those vorns ago was to humiliate him; he wasn't known for his mercy. No matter one way or the other, they couldn't, as a group, afford another soldier going down.

"_SLAG IT!" _Ironhide, wherever he was, roared with frustration.

"_No!"_ Ratchet snarled.

"_Megatron!" _This was Optimus, his voice nearly audible even without the commlink. More distantly he could hear Megatron's low growl: _"Priiime …"_

It was too early to grieve. Bumblebee tried to hold out hope.

"Sam! Sam, where's the Cube!?"

Bumblebee jerked up his head, looking over his shoulder at the approaching soldier. It was Lennox. "It's right there," Sam said, pointing near Bumblebee's elbow.

"_Primus, it's Blackout," _Ratchet groaned. _"How many Decepticons are on this fragging planet!? I need to get to Jazz!"_

The soldier ran off again, disappearing into the smoke of battle; Mikaela tested the rig holding Bumblebee in place. Eighteen seconds later the soldier reappeared. "Okay!"

"What?" Sam asked, squinting at Lennox.

"Okay, I can't leave my guys back there," Lennox said. He slapped an oblong cylindrical stick into Sam's palm. "Take this flare. There's a tall white building with statues on it over there. Go to the roof. Set the flare."

"No," Sam exclaimed, shaking his head.

"Go to the roof and set the flare—"

"No, no, I can't," Sam cried, his voice cracking.

Lennox grabbed Sam by the front of his shirt; Mikaela stopped what she was doing and Bumblebee almost put out a hand to stop the officer. "Listen to me, you're a soldier now!" Lennox shouted.

Sam stared, panting for breath. Bumblebee was uncertain how he sensed it – none of his inputs showed anything different about the air or the humans – but he knew something was different. Perhaps he was intuitively realizing something about their body language.

"All right?" Lennox continued when Sam didn't say anything. He grabbed the Allspark and shoved it into Sam's chest; Sam automatically grabbed it. "I need you to take the Cube and get it into military hands while we hold those things off, or a lot of people are going to die!"

Sam was silent for a long moment, and he didn't nod, but Lennox apparently took his silence as assent. Sam looked at Bumblebee. "I …"

Bumblebee nodded; the hand he had halfway lifted to forestall Lennox he now used to touch Sam's forearm with a single finger in imitation of Sam's earlier comforting gesture. Like Ironhide, he preferred the idea of the Allspark leaving the city. If they could forestall the Decepticons long enough, the Allspark could be moved to another place with sufficient shielding like its previous location; the Autobots could then regroup, collect the Allspark, and leave the planet.

He would, he admitted to himself, be sorry to leave Sam and Mikaela.

"I'll never make it," Sam whispered.

_Jazz believed you would, _Bumblebee thought. He gave Sam a light shove in the shoulder with the same finger, causing the human to stumble backwards a step. Sam rolled his shoulder, looked down at the precious Cube in his hands, and turned away to run.

"Sam!"

Mikaela called Sam back, and the two of them approached each other tentatively. "No matter what happens," she said, her voice barely audible to Bumblebee's receptors over all the other noise, "I'm glad I got in that car with you."

Sam just looked at her. Bumblebee turned himself to more important matters. _Ironhide, Ratchet EXCLAMATION! The Allspark is moving EXCLAMATION! Sam is moving east along a road called Third Street with the Allspark in hand STOP. He needs cover STOP._

"_Understood! Ratchet and I are on the way," _Ironhide returned.

Sam tore off down the street and over the commlink Bumblebee heard the two larger Autobots telling Sam they would give him cover. Mikaela continued to flutter around him, her hands shaking as she pulled on wires and chains holding Bumblebee in place.

"Get that tow truck out of here!" Lennox bellowed at her.

"I am! I'm going!" Mikaela looked up at Bumblebee briefly – her throat worked and her eyes held more than a normal amount of moisture in them. She then ran past him to climb into the truck's interior, driving away from the sounds and sights of battle.

She was starting to cry, Bumblebee realized. Why? Was she sad? Perhaps she believed Sam wouldn't survive his mission. Bumblebee wasn't sure any of them were going to survive at this point: his commlink was alive with the battle between Megatron and Optimus, with Ratchet and Ironhide screaming at Sam to keep running.

Humans were not so different from Autobots in what they felt, Bumblebee reflected, even if they found different ways to express it by nature of having such different bodies. An Autobot could not cry, but the idea of Jazz's spark being extinguished was a shock and grieved him deeply, just as Mikaela grieved for Sam. Cybertronians did not have chemicals in their systems to overwhelm their logic processors, but they could feel fear and anger just as a human could. Bumblebee was built with weapons in his body and Mikaela was not, but right now he felt helpless; he suspected Mikalea felt helpless too.

Optimus believed that at their core level, all sentient beings were the same – inorganic or organic, biological or non-biological. And all were free to make their own choices, feel their own feelings, and lead their own lives. Bumblebee had never deeply considered the matter: he trusted the Prime and had sworn his allegiance to his cause simply because he believed it was the right thing to do, because he himself enjoyed his autonomy. But now, as Mikaela pulled into a narrow, quiet alleyway and sat behind the wheel of the tow truck, he felt he had come to some kind of intersection with these short-lived humans – an intersection of similarity that could not be dismissed.

Mikaela was silent except for her hitching breaths, audible now only because of their distance from the battle. Bumblebee twisted to look back towards the cabin of the tow truck; she was hunched over, her head on the steering wheel. He could also hear the saber rounds of the humans, and with a slight adjustment of his radio, their shouts of dismay as the tank-alt-form Decepticon continued to refuse to die.

_An unarmed human and an Autobot without legs_, Bumblebee thought, _can individually do nothing. But are we not allied with the humans now?_

The girl drew a longer, deeper breath, and lifted her head. She twisted in her own seat to look at Bumblebee, her jaw clenched and her brows drawn slightly together: a look of determination.

The scout chirruped and nodded at her. _Be my legs, Mikaela._

Bumblebee felt the truck shudder under him as Mikaela suddenly peeled out of the alleyway. She swerved down one street, then around a corner facing away from the battle. "Woah, wait, wait!" Bumblebee attempted when he swung wildly on the rig (and actually got a few sounds that almost sounded like the words he had intended). He had to put down his stumps on the ground for some balance, creating a shower of sparks and an unpleasant vibrating sensation, but when Mikaela stopped she left Bumblebee with a clear view of the tank-alt-form Decepticon the humans were violently carrying on against. A plethora of abandoned cars were the only obstacles between him and the target.

"You shoot, I'll drive," Mikaela said. She slammed the truck into reverse and hit the gas.

The Autobot locked his faceguard down and uploaded his plasma cannon. Mikaela's view of the road was obstructed by the tail end of the truck and Bumblebee's body, but she put her trust in the Autobot to not let her crash. Bumblebee fired a few times at the Decepticon; the shots went wide, one glancing against its head. He shoved a car out of his way with his hand and another he shot away with his cannon.

"Shoot, shoot!" Mikaela screamed. She swerved around another car, shaking up Bumblebee's line of sight, but it wasn't as if the scout hadn't fired on enemies while on a moving vehicle before; his next shot hit the Decepticon in the upper shoulder, spinning it halfway around.

The tank spotted Bumblebee; Bumblebee's faceplates drew into a smirk under his mask. When the Decepticon fired a shot in return, he uploaded his shoulder rocket launchers; they popped out smoothly, and he fired his two remaining rockets simultaneously. One of them intercepted the Decepticon's attempted return fire; the other struck it in the thigh.

And Bumblebee was hardly its only opponent; the humans, nestled into crevices barely visible to Bumblebee through the smoke, were firing saber rounds. They did admirable damage, although not quite as much as the superheated plasma Bumblebee's cannon ejected. The scout lowered his shoulder and smashed a minivan out of the way, then lined up three more shots, one right after the other.

All three struck the tank Decepticon; one a glancing blow, the other in the arm, but the final shot caught him directly in his cracked chestplates. A flare of electromagnetic energy and a distant flickering sense of a spark alerted the scout that he had struck true; the Decepticon's spark chamber had been destroyed. It slumped to the ground, the light going out of its optics.

Mikaela screeched to a halt by the hiding places of the soldiers, which included Lennox. Bumblebee lifted one side of his visor to peek inside the gutted building; the men were all slowly standing up, looking awed. "Woah," one commented, and Bumblebee responded with a pleased sound, drawing up his faceplates to a facsimile of a human smile. He locked his faceguard back atop his head.

Mikaela was panting for breath when she climbed out of the cab; Bumblebee receded his pulse cannon back into his forearm as she passed, wiggling his fingers to make certain he hadn't sustained any damage a diagnostic couldn't report. "Nice shot," she said breathlessly.

"We did okay," Bumblebee tried to answer. The sound he made sounded so much like the word 'okay' that Bumblebee could practically smell speech again. _So soon now, so soon!_

"Hey, we've got Black Hawks coming in to retrieve the Cube," Lennox reported breathlessly. "That's one down, but let's go, people, we've still got a lot of work to do!" The man waved at his teammates, using hand signals to tell them where to go, before he turned his attention to Mikaela. "Hey, girl – Mikaela, right? - Nice job coming in there and saving our bacon." He looked up at the Autobot. "You too. Thanks."

Bumblebee nodded and chirruped. _It's my job, after all – more so than yours! _Although he wasn't quite sure what swine meat had to do with it.

"Least we could do," Mikaela said breezily, as if her hands weren't visibly shaking to Bumblebee's optics. "Look, I just – I'm just wondering if there's anything we can do to help." She gestured back to Bumblebee.

Lennox looked back and forth between them, taking in Mikaela's shaking hands and his gaze focusing particularly on Bumblebee's lack of legs. "We need to go cover Sam," he said after a moment. "You want to help? Watch our six. We've got this side of downtown cleared of Decepticons, so make sure none of them come up behind us, okay?"

Mikaela nodded. "All right. We'll follow you."

"No; stay here!" Lennox snapped. He shoved a block of plastic and electronics into her hand. "Take this radio and alert us if anything approaches!" He hefted his weapon and ran past them.

Mikaela looked down at the radio in her hands, trudging closer to Bumblebee; Bumblebee looked up, gazing after Lennox and beyond him, and spotted Starscream unfolding from his F-22 alt-form in midair, preparing to alight somewhere out of the range of Bumblebee's optics but close to where Bumblebee could sense the Allspark.

"_Hang on, Sam!" _Optimus was shouting, wherever he was. Megatron had clearly disengaged the Prime, probably to go after the Allspark.

_The tank alt-form Decepticon is slagged STOP, _Bumblebee reported. _Where is Sam QUERY?_

"_Brawl is down? Thank Primus," _Ironhide growled. _"Sam's with the Allspark, Optimus is on it. I've got my hands full with Blackout! Ratchet, can you back Prime up?"_

"_Stand by," _the medic bot responded.

"_Stand by? Stand by!? Sam's going to get slagged trying to save us all and you can't fragging back him up!?"_

"_I'm examining Jazz' spark chamber!" _Ratchet snapped. _"I'm glad you haven't forgotten your primary function, but neither have I!"_

"_Shit, shit, Black Hawk 603 is down, Black Hawk 603 is down!" _screamed a voice from Mikaela's radio. _"This shit is FUBAR!"_

Mikaela bowed her head towards the radio, clutching it in fingers gone white from her energon system – bloodstream – being forced away by pressure. "Oh my god," she whispered.

"_I can't see the boy! There's a freaking monster on that roof!"_

"_That's Megatron! You fall back, soldier, right now! The only thing that's going to stand up to that monster is an air strike!"_

"_We are not equipped for air strike, ground control. The Cube is not within range. Black Hawks out. Air strike F-22s will be in range for ground control contact in three minutes, over."_

Bumblebee chirruped to grab Mikaela's attention; the human looked up, her eyes bright with tears again. He patched his radio into his speakers. _"Message from Starfleet, captain," _he played at her before letting her listen in to what he heard on his own internal radio. He couldn't guarantee it would bring her comfort, but if this was it, she deserved to know as much as anyone.

"_I've got you, boy!" _Optimus Prime's voice was calm, a counterpoint to Sam's barely audible ragged breathing. _"Hold onto the Cube!" _There was the sound of what might have been combat, and Optimus groaned. A hiss of static and a painful screech of feedback alerted Bumblebee to a painful blow to the torso and made Mikaela clutch her ears.

"_Sam. You risked your life to protect the Cube," _Optimus said after a few seconds of listening to Ironhide and Ratchet swear at each other in Cybertronian.

"_No sacrifice, no victory," _Sam panted. Mikaela clasped her hand over her mouth, staring at Bumblebee; Bumblebee felt no less relieved to hear him alive.

"_If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must push the Cube into my chest. I will sacrifice myself to destroy it. Get behind me."_

"Optimus will protect Sam, won't he?" Mikaela asked, swallowing.

Bumblebee nodded gravely. _With the very last pulse of his spark, he will defend all of you. _He closed the patch, and not a moment too soon for what Optimus said next.

"_Ironhide, Ratchet, Bumblebee – Jazz, if you can hear me – it's time I ended this. It has been an honor serving with all of you." SIGNAL LOST ERROR 888928X!L.298 SUBJECT SIGNOUT_

There seemed to be nothing to say to that if their leader wasn't listening. Ratchet and Ironhide both fell silent over the commlink: the thought it could be Optimus' last transmission was too overwhelming to contemplate at the moment.

"I'm a little freaked out," Mikaela admitted – 'freaked out' being the human colloquial for 'frightened'. Bumblebee nodded and pointed to his own chest in an attempt to gesture 'me too'.

Above their heads a lone F-22 in the last stages of transformation screamed. Bumblebee pointed up at it; Mikaela blinked hard at the bright sky, squinting. "Is that Starscream?"

"Ee-esss," Bumblebee said, multi-toned and still not quite a word, but the sound was unmistakably recognizable.

Mikaela grabbed the radio to her mouth. "Hey, Starscream, the jet Decepticon – it just flew, uh—" she glanced around wildly. "—South!"

"_Roger that! Incoming air strike please be advised, watch for additional airman. It is not friendly, repeat, not friendly!"_

"_Rodger that, ground control."_

"_We've got targets mixed with friendlies, targets will be marked."_

"_Ironhide, this is Ratchet. Still need backup on Blackout?"_

"_Slagger got away from me. Left leg's locked up."_

"_Fragging --- rrgh, can none of you stay in one piece!? I'm coming to you – Prime'll need your backup more than mine."_

"_I take it Jazz is down for the count, then?"_

"_He's dead." _Ratchet's voice was flat, even in the multi-toned Cybertronian speech. Bumblebee went very still, as completely statuesque as in alt-form. A series of F-22 Raptors in perfect wing formation flew over the city, releasing a series of missiles. The ground trembled with their impact.

"_Bumblebee, are you mission-capable?" _Ratchet interrupted his reverie.

_Not without Mikaela's help STOP. We will be a liability STOP, _Bumblebee reported automatically.

"_Okay. Patch her in for me, will you?"_

Bumblebee obediently re-patched his radio into his speakers. _Done STOP. _The series of electronic noises that made up Cybertronian morse code caught Mikaela's attention again.

"_Mikaela, I need you to bring Bumblebee up to Sixth Street and Nth Street. Ironhide is there and he needs some medical attention, but I don't have time to disable his self-repair nodes. I need Bumblebee there to hold him down. Can you bring him here for me?"_

Mikaela stared at Bumblebee's chest, nodding in a slightly jerky manner before gaining more confidence. Having something real to do helped her to focus, it seemed. "Uh, yeah, I'll get him there."

"_Very good. Thank you, Bumblebee." _Bumblebee disabled the patch; Mikaela stared at him for a long moment, hesitating as if she wished to ask something, but there was no time. Bumblebee motioned for her to get in the tow truck and drive.

Sucking wind suddenly tore Mikaela's hair into a whipping frenzy around her face; a sound like a Seeker going down, screaming, roaring air grinding the sky above their heads. She ducked, gasping, and dove towards the ground; Bumblebee leaned over her, flattening his sensors across his back. A crashing cacophony of sound hit his audio receptors and rubble showered over him, denting his armor; the sound passed away to the southwest, only to be concluded with an explosive concussion and the ground trembling.

Bumblebee sat upright very carefully, showering plaster and stone and brick around Mikaela's hunched form. The girl slowly got to her feet, her hands and legs trembling again. "Wh-what was that?" She looked around for the answer.

The Autobot thought he knew: an F-22, probably brought down by Starscream despite their warning. It wasn't Megatron: he would have known that EM presence. But it wasn't important, as there was nothing they could do about the downed aircraft. "Gooo," he intoned, whipping his arm back and patting the roof of the tow truck's cab. Mikaela nodded, gasping for breath and swallowing, and they were finally on their way.

Ironhide wasn't far; the sounds of terrified, hurt humans were all around them as well. They needed help, but Bumblebee wouldn't have even known where to start – and the whole thing would be a moot point if Megatron survived the fight with Optimus. Ratchet was there when Mikaela pulled up to the two Autobots, Ratchet leaning over Ironhide's locked leg. Ironhide's armor was already separated away from the joint, revealing wiring and gears otherwise protected. "What do I do?" she asked.

"You do nothing. He might be leaking coolant – it's like your 'freon', dangerous to touch," Ratchet answered tightly. "Primus, Bumblebee, your legs." He shook his head heavily, but said no more on the subject. "Can you lean forward enough to hold his leg?"

Bumblebee nodded and leaned out over the rig holding him in the tow truck, grasping the larger Autobot's thigh in a tight grip. Ironhide grumbled. "It's just a piece of rubble in the gears! Slag it, of all the things at a time like this--!"

"If you kick me I will take you apart bolt by bolt," Ratchet threatened. He reached around the back of Ratchet's knee, grabbed something, and yanked hard.

Ironhide let out a yell. "Yowch! Slag it, Hatchet!" His thigh bucked against Bumblebee's hand, but the scout was able to hold it fast. "My gears aren't supposed to turn that way!"

"Your piece of rubble," Ratchet growled, holding up a chunk of razor-sharp metal alloy – likely a piece of Blackout's blades. "It's a bang-up job, but at least you can transform now."

"And stand up." Ironhide's armor hissed back into place and the old weapons specialist staggered to his feet. "All right, let's go he—"

He stopped talking. For Mikaela, Bumblebee would later think, it must have been a very strange sight; all three Autobots abruptly sitting or standing up straight as if at attention, their heads all turning to look unerringly in the same direction.

The Allspark's signal was disappearing.

For so long, even in Bumblebee's relatively short life on Cybertron, the Allspark was a constant thrum of EMS on his sensors, the background of every aspect of function. The sense of loss when Optimus had jettisoned the Cube from the planet was palpable; Cybertron was quickly abandoned. It had felt good to finally sense the Allspark again, even in the severe crisis of the last few hours. But now, the three Autobots knew they were feeling the death of their only source of life.

No more sparks. No more Cybertronians. And no more Optimus.

"Prime!" Ironhide bellowed, folding down to his alt-form. He peeled down the street, leaving a streak of foul-smelling rubber behind.

Ratchet's own transformation was markedly jerky, a sign of the medic's own injuries, but the H2 Hummer followed immediately. "Bumblebee, Mikaela, stay here! We will deal with Megatron!" And with that he squealed around the corner.

Mikaela twisted in her seat in the cab to look at Bumblebee. "What happened?" she demanded.

Bumblebee grasped his throat helplessly and pointed in the direction the two had gone. "Goo, gooo!" His voice clicked with effort. Ironhide and Ratchet were arrogant to think they alone could hold back Megatron. It was probably arrogance to think he could offer much help, but if they were the last Autobots on this planet, he would fight to his death to protect its inhabitants. And Sam – Sam was there. Bumblebee couldn't leave him to be killed.

"Okay!" Mikaela clearly wasn't about to be left behind again. She threw the truck into gear and squealed off after them, Bumblebee clinging to the flatbed for balance.

The next twenty-three seconds were possibly the most excruciating of Bumblebee's life. Shaken, the Autobot was not prepared at all for what he saw when Mikaela drove up to where the other Cybertronians stood.

Optimus Prime, getting to his feet. Megatron, lying on his back unmoving. And Sam – Sam, standing there, dirty and clothes torn, but on his feet.

The Allspark had been destroyed, but not by merging with the Prime's spark. No; the Cube had been shoved into a different Cybertronian's chest by Sam, and the amount of bravery it must have taken to do it left Bumblebee absolutely astounded. It was Sam Witwicky, a human whose lifespan was barely even a fraction of their own, who had ended the longest contest in the history of Cybertron's civil war – and he had done it by killing Megatron and destroying the Allspark in one fell swoop.

Bumblebee gazed down at Sam with gratitude and amazement; Mikaela jogged up to Sam, beaming at him, her body language suggesting she wished to touch but wasn't sure if it was okay.

"Oh, Jazz." Bumblebee looked up at Optimus, who was now clutching their fallen teammate. Jazz was in two pieces. Bumblebee flinched at the viciousness it implied. "We have lost a great comrade," Optimus continued, gazing down at Jazz' empty body; the Prime then looked up, scanning his optics over everyone present. "But we have gained others. Thank you, everyone. You honor us with your bravery." He nodded especially at Sam.

A notification, quiet and nearly unnoticeable, popped up on Bumblebee's optics: _Voice processors online._

In truth, Bumblebee had not expected that to happen spontaneously: he had thought he would need Ratchet to finish repairing the damage done so long ago. He clicked a couple of times and lifted his optics to Optimus. "Permission to speak, sir."

It was his voice – distorted, about an octave lower than usual, painful to use, but his voice nonetheless. "Wait, you speak now?" Sam asked incredulously.

Optimus' optics shuttered twice in surprise. "Permission granted, old friend!" he declared, his tone full of pleasure. Ironhide and Ratchet both looked at each other and Ratchet shook his head, shrugging.

Jazz, if his spark weren't extinguished – he would have laughed. Accused Bumblebee of hiding the fact he could talk until a dramatic moment.

"I wish to stay with the boy," Bumblebee admitted. He felt honored to be able to claim anything like friendship with someone so brave.

"If that is his choice," Optimus said, shifting his gaze over to Sam.

Sam looked up at Optimus, then back at Bumblebee; finally his gaze shifted over to Mikaela. Through it all a slow smile spread on his face. "Yeah," he said, nodding. "That'd be great."

_To be continued_

_And so concludes pretty much the entire story the movie tells us! But just as this adaptation started before the movie began, so it shall end after the movie is over._

_Song credits go to Daft Punk (Harder Better Faster Stronger, OBVIOUSLY the ultimate Transformers song) and Sonny/Cher (I Got You, Babe)._

_Thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter: Geekgirl (I swear, if Bumblebee ever crushed on a human, it would be Mikaela – she's just so badass!), Hellfirefanatic (Thank you!), Rena1 (to answer your question Bumblebee saw the aftermath of Sam trying to help him, not the actual attempt itself. And it seemed weird to me that the Allspark heals Frenzy and not 'Bee, so I used a little bit of leeway in the movie to make up for that), Bookworm Gal (I'll consider a 'sequel adaptation' for Revenge of the Fallen – depends on if it grips me enough (and if the book adaptation has accurate enough dialogue)), and Skittles the Sugar Fairy (I'm glad the right scenes had the right level of emotional impact: it's hard to tell after you've written it if you've portrayed the right level of emotion). On a side note to FinalFantasyNovel: I was saddened to realize I couldn't send you a PM. I really appreciated your long review to the fifth chapter, and I wanted to tell you that I'm constantly thinking about things like how a Transformer might view humans. I'm glad you enjoyed my efforts to capture that._

_Next chapter: Prime and 'Bee have a chat and 'Bee gets back his legs. I can tell you in advance that if you want superior post-movie fic, go read Dwimordene's stuff here on – she's amazing._

_Thanks for reading and please review!_


	9. Back In Black and Yellow

**Epilogue: Back In Black (and Yellow)**

The aftermath of the battle was not so terrible as it might have been.

Humans had died, as they inevitably would have in such a populated place, but it didn't seem the actual death toll was as high as it might have been. Inevitably the people that wrote the news reports Bumblebee had read day in and day out appeared at the outskirts of the city by evening and demanded to report on the disaster. Hundreds of walking wounded were being treated by hundreds of emergency medical personnel, and those who could not walk were being flown out as quickly as the humans were able. The media were calling it a 'second 9/11'. The government of the United States was 'investigating'. Wild stories about giant robots were flying around everywhere, but it seemed that no one had conclusive proof of their existence except for the accounts of dozens of eyewitnesses. The rumors were sped along by the sudden revival of the human satellite and cyber network just hours after the attack on Mission City.

Bumblebee knew all of this by second-hand accounts, since he spent his time trapped in an auto body shop's garage with Ratchet. Ratchet, by any measure, was not very pleasant company at a time like this.

"Slagging Ironhide and his slagging 'plan'," the medic growled, brutally ripping some frayed wiring out of Bumblebee's legs. "He should have called me! Not the slaggin' _light mech_!"

Not that Bumblebee didn't wish he hadn't had his legs blown off, but Ratchet wasn't outfitted with the sturdiest armor himself (even if he was bigger); the situation where the medic bot was the least injured of them all was still ideal. He started to say as much before the other Autobot snapped, "And don't you say a word! I don't care what the Allspark did or didn't do – your voice is still a glitch and a half!"

He wasn't wrong about that, either. Even though he could finally (blessedly!) speak real words again, Bumblebee suspected that he had best not push it. It was progress, not a fix-all, as his (finally reporting) diagnostics had indicated. (Specifically, they put his operation at 22.23% and _falling_. At least he knew that much!)

"I just can't wait to open you up and see what you've done to your central systems," Ratchet groused. "I'm sure that's delightful too. Move that piston and I'll _throw_ you back to the Ark," he added when Bumblebee's knee twitched under Ratchet's hands. Bumblebee couldn't help a protesting whine, and he cringed at the caustic look the medic sent his way.

It was uncomfortable, the 'surgery' of cleaning out damaged servos and circuits and coolant lines. The functional self-repair nodes in the region were all disabled to prevent exactly that discomfort, but other nodes, further up Bumblebee's legs and into his hips, still registered every involuntary movement and provoked a negative response. Ratchet swore creatively in Cybertronian. Bumblebee turned on his commlink in desperate hope for a distraction when the medic descended to comparing Bumblebee to Sideswipe; the kind of vocalization-lashing _that _could engender was far beyond anything Bumblebee believed he deserved to endure.

But both Ironhide and Optimus had offlined their commlinks, probably to avoid Ratchet. _Smart move, _the Autobot thought. Unfortunately, lacking legs to outrun Ratchet's creatively profane vocals, Bumblebee was first in line for treatment.

Mikaela had said it was 'obvious triage' to repair Bumblebee first, but Cybertronians, being necessarily far different from humans in terms of make, didn't have a triage system quite like that of humans. Of course those who were in danger of losing their spark came first, just as humans placed those most likely to lose their central vital systems first in line for treatment. However, after that, Cybertronian triage turned human triage on its head. Those least grievously injured were the second in line for treatment – the sooner they could go back into their function at one hundred percent performance. The last to be repaired were those in Bumblebee's proverbial shoes: out of commission, but not in danger of spark-extinguishment. The theory went that medics could then devote their time properly to the heavily-damaged, but in reality it was simply practical: the useful came first. The useless came last, or were discarded.

Rumor held it that Decepticons usually extinguished the sparks of their heavily damaged. Bumblebee wondered if and ultimately doubted that was the case, except when swift retreat was called for. Nobody wanted their intel falling into the enemy's hands, after all. (Which reminded Bumblebee of Barricade, and also reminded him to wonder where the Decepticon had disappeared to after the 93 exchange. He made note to ask Ironhide – or Ratchet, when the medic was not inclined to rip the remains of his vocal processors out for trying to speak.)

Triage was why Ratchet had stopped fighting the Decepticons for Jazz, and for Ironhide, but not for Bumblebee.

The only other company in the garage was what Sam had called 'morbid': Jazz's protoform, stretched out on the floor in the two pieces Megatron had rent him into. Being near the shell of his teammate was not so much disturbing as saddening – knowing that protoform would never stand up again, would never crack a joke over the commlink, would never walk Optimus Prime down from a bad mood. Jazz was hardly the first friend Bumblebee had lost in the war, but he was the closest. Soon he would be closer, in a sense; Ratchet had already announced his intention to salvage Jazz's legs to build Bumblebee's new ones. It was the sort of provenance that sobered the scout and upset the humans. Bumblebee had noted their revulsion to the concept with slight detachment, although he was hardly surprised by it: humans buried their dead, or occasionally turned them to ashes, but it was all done with great ceremony. Then again, biological organs rapidly decomposed and compatibility was low or rare. No one would suggest strapping a man's dead legs to a living man's body. It simply wasn't possible for them.

(On the other hand, humans had a disturbing tendency to use the vital organs of a 'brain dead' human to save the lives of other humans. Bumblebee could compare 'brain death' to nothing so much as stasis lock, and no sane Cybertronian would salvage another Cybertronian in stasis. It would be like organ theft.)

But there was a reason that the whole remaining team was keeping to themselves as much as possible, and it wasn't to avoid Ratchet: the Autobots had a lot to mourn. The loss of the Allspark weighed heavily on Bumblebee, as he was sure it weighed on them all. Illusions and optimism aside, it was highly unlikely that the destruction of the Cube would actually end the war: the Allspark had never been the final objective, merely the focus of some of the most intense and vicious battles. It had to be destroyed, because the Allspark in Decepticon hands was absolutely unacceptable, but the driving force behind the fighting had really been …

That was hard to say, actually. Bumblebee's optics dimmed as he took time to consider a question that had simply not come up in his processors: what would happen now that Megatron's spark was extinguished? What kept the Decepticons driven for domination? Of course the fight would not end immediately no matter what, since so few could know of the former Lord High Protector's demise, but what when they all knew? Optimus Prime would have answers, perhaps: answers that would explain why he had (obliquely) granted Bumblebee's request to stay with Sam, when realistically they should leave this planet. But if they all grieved for the Allspark and for Jazz, Optimus grieved for one other fallen Cybertronian: Megatron himself. For the relatively young Autobot the idea was preposterous, but even he knew the histories, that Megatron and Optimus Prime had long ruled Cybertron peacefully together. Surely vorns of vicious opposition couldn't fully outweigh vorns of friendship.

And so he sat there and said nothing, his grip denting the tow truck's flatbed in turns as Ratchet methodically took apart what was left of his lower legs.

He already missed the humans in some ways, perhaps because he was worried about them. Both Sam and Mikaela had been waylaid for medical attention around midafternoon: hard as it might have been to believe, Bumblebee's chronometer informed him the final battle over the Allspark had raged for barely an hour, ending roughly at ten o'clock in the morning local time. The early hour of the battle had helped keep the death toll down. After the two adolescents had consented to medical care, both had been swept up for debriefing by the military with alarming swiftness. No doubt the Sector Seven humans would have words with the children as well. Bumblebee had desperately wanted Optimus Prime to accompany them, but Optimus had seen no reason to go when he could be of more assistance here in the aftermath, and Lennox had assured the disabled scout they would come to no harm. With little choice but to trust him, the Autobot held in his cerebral processors their perfect health back in Hoover Dam: no matter what they had done to Bumblebee, they had not harmed their young.

The whole repair process had been delayed by a lengthy and careful diagnostic of Bumblebee's debuggers. The last Ratchet had heard from Bumblebee before the crisis had been upon them was the scout's personal assessment that he was at risk of viral infection; it was no surprise the medic doubted the Allspark had rebooted him clean. Bumblebee, done with misfortune and muteness for as long as possible, suffered the exam with relative grace.

It was now going on fourteen hours since the battle. Bumblebee knew Ratchet could keep going like this, muttering quietly to himself and scattering in frustrated complaints to his captive audience, for roughly 50 hours straight before having to recharge. Bumblebee, on the other hand, was on the last legs of his capacitors. The Allspark had recharged him after the spark damage incurred, but there was nothing quite like losing massive amounts of electrical discharge from battle, destroyed circuits, and attempts to self-repair to put a Cybertronian to offline.

Bumblebee put a fist to his faceplates and made a coughing noise. Ratchet glared up at him. "I hope you realize your vocal processors are next," he pointed out, jabbing a finger at the scout.

The smaller Autobot shrugged slightly and released a series of sounds like a dial-up modem. _I need a recharge cycle STOP._

Ratchet's features softened slightly. "Then offline yourself if you need to."

Bumblebee hesitated slightly. _Do you need another diagnostic QUERY?_

"If I need one I'll hardline you in—"

"No!" Bumblebee protested, a surge of ridiculous panic and a jolt of neck pain making him jump. Ratchet's brow ridges shot up; the scout hastily backtracked, reverting to morse code. _Please don't hardline my systems STOP. Sorry about using my voice STOP._

"Any reason why I should know about?" Ratchet asked in an arch tone.

Bumblebee remained silent for a long moment. It felt silly to admit that he was uncomfortable with anything other than his own central systems having control over his protoform because of the actions of a few humans, even if it was true, and of course he trusted Ratchet, but if he woke up from recharge hardlined … Bumblebee was not certain how, in that brief moment of confusion between offline and online, he would react. It made him want to speak in euphemisms – _'Let's just say …' _– a very Jazz-like thing to do, and highly impractical in digital code.

He cycled his vents and answered honestly. _The humans hardlined me and hijacked protoform control from my central processors STOP. It was unpleasant STOP._

Ratchet sat back and met Bumblebee's optics for a long moment, his faceplates expressionless. "I suppose it's to be expected," he said after a long moment, cycling his own vents loudly. He didn't specify what was to be expected – Bumblebee's reluctance or the humans' actions. "All right. I've got plenty to work with for now and I can get started on disassembling Jazz's relevant parts. You take ten hours recharge, and if you short yourself you'll hear about it. Got it?"

Bumblebee nodded.

&

He didn't short himself – much. At 9:24:06 the next morning Bumblebee's onlining subroutines kicked in from the external stimuli of recognizable voices near his audio processors. Lying in a prone position across the floor with his head resting on his forearms, he shuttered his optics a few times as he came online and lifted his head.

A heavy metal hand whacked him across the back of his cerebral plating. "What did I tell you about shorting yourself!?"

Bumblebee grabbed the abused plating and clicked irritably, but the sight of two familiar humans quickly distracted him. "Bumblebee!" Sam exclaimed; Mikaela echoed him eagerly. "Ratchet said you wouldn't be awake for like half an hour."

"He wasn't going to be, but it seems he decided to ignore the medic's advice," Ratchet grumbled.

Bumblebee pushed himself up on elbows and gave Ratchet a doubtful look before asking aloud, "What-t-t are you doing heeere?"

"We came to see you, duh," Sam answered. He was in a fresh set of clothes and his skin was no longer coated with dirt and dust. Mikaela, too, looked refreshed. Her clothes were suspiciously similar to those of Sam's.

"I thought Sector Seven was never going to be done asking questions," Mikaela groaned. "The SecDef came too, though, and …" she glanced at Sam. "Basically we're not in any trouble unless we tell anyone about you guys."

"Your government is still going to try to keep us a secret after this disaster of a battle?" Ratchet demanded. "How do they intend to do that? Your 'media' is everywhere out there."

"But they're not in _here_," Sam pointed out, gesturing around the auto shop. "Until they get clear video of, like, Optimus Prime standing around, there's no real proof. Mass hallucination, or something." He shrugged. "You feeling okay, Bumblebee?" he asked.

"Don't encourage him," the medic snapped. "This little glitch gets a couple of words out and he thinks he's going to be giving dissertations on gestalt minds. His vocal processors are nowhere near full recovery and if he thinks he can keep talking whenever he wants he's going to _break them again_." This last part was mostly directed at the back of Bumblebee's head, and the scout hunched his shoulders sheepishly. "In any case, he'll be fine." The medic finally came two steps around the prone Autobot so he could deliver the verdict to both the humans and the subject himself: "Virtually everything you managed to get slagged is interchangeable with Jazz, so count yourself lucky. I've collected most of the servos that need replacement or repairs, but unless you managed to fix something in recharge, I'm still dealing with an incomplete diagnostic. Your coolant is backing up, one out of every ten thousand pulses is a misfire, and you've leaked energon. Lucky for you I know what I'm doing."

Sam's eyes had gone wide and unfocused, but Mikaela stepped forward, touching Ratchet's arm. The medic didn't notice immediately – unusual for him, since he had a medic's touch sensors. _And what about you? _Bumblebee thought archly. Of course, whatever damage the medic had sustained would likely wait on Bumblebee's recovery: out of the team, the scout came closest to knowing anything near the amount Ratchet did about Cybertronian anatomy. He was a former maintenance bot, after all, and in a pinch could function much as a human nurse might.

He made a querying noise in Mikaela's direction, drawing Ratchet's attention down and towards the relatively diminutive human. "What is it?"

"Ah, well – I know a little something about cars—"

"We're hardly like an automobile," Ratchet snapped. "Although we might appear like one at times."

Mikaela drew herself up, scowling. "Okay, I get that. But if you could teach me, maybe I could help."

Ratchet gave Mikaela a long, doubtful look. Bumblebee, shamelessly eager for the company, chirruped his approval. "Your parental units, they are surely worried about you. Have you notified them of your whereabouts?"

Sam and Mikaela exchanged glances. "We, uh, we can't exactly get back up to Tranquility right now," Sam explained, glancing nervously at Bumblebee. "Technically we're still in Sector Seven's custody."

"It's not really your business anyway, is it?" Mikaela asked. "Anyway, I want to do _something. _Everyone here is doing something and they won't let me leave or do anything."

_She actually knew what my distributor cap was STOP. She's small enough to get where you cannot STOP, _Bumblebee told Ratchet.

Both of the humans jumped with surprise at the burst of modem-like sound from Bumblebee. "Wha-did he say something?" Sam asked, his eyes wide.

Ratchet eyed Bumblebee distrustfully, but he got to his feet and started to move back to the Autobot's legs. "Find some gloves and come down here," Ratchet growled. "Do exactly as I say, and we'll see what can be done."

Mikaela straightened. She gave Bumblebee a brief smile, squeezed Sam's hand, and started across the garage to do as Ratchet ordered. "…. S-sam-m?" Bumblebee inquired at a near whisper, which unfortunately was not quiet enough to spare him from a gentle bang across his back plating.

Sam shook his head (he had been staring at Mikaela, of course) and met Bumblebee's optics. Once again he seemed to catch the scout's meaning without having to hear a real or complete sentence. "They're making me go to my parents' debriefing," he said mournfully. "It's going to be the most fun conversation of my _life._" But he offered a brief smile right afterwards. "I, uh, I … the whole thing … it freaked me out – it freaked both of us out," he confessed, indicating Mikaela. "But, uh, me too – I'm glad I decided to, uh, ride with you."

"Me too." Bumblebee's voice clicked into silence and he cringed, but Ratchet was busy explaining something-or-other to Mikaela and not paying attention.

Sam grinned at him. "Guess seeing the doc is just as un-fun for you guys as it is for us."

Bumblebee nodded. A metal hand clamped down on his thigh to cut the residual movement the motion caused. "Bumblebee, lie _still._"

"I'd better get going. I told the agent guys I'd meet them outside here in like a minute," the boy added. "But – well – I'm expecting you in my driveway sometime, okay? If I don't get to see you again before you come back." He turned to leave.

The Autobot chirruped his answer at Sam's back. _Wish you could stay and keep me company, too!_

&

Mikaela proved excellent help. Bumblebee was somewhat gratified to see his prediction that Ratchet would love Mikaela held true; he wasn't sure if Mikaela realized, though, given how the medic barked at her to be careful, watch that circuit, don't touch that liquid. His patient explanations for each and every servo and pump gave away his affection. One memorable hour was wiled away by Mikaela's naïve 'what ifs' and Ratchet's increasingly warm reception to the idea of human cybernetic limbs.

Still, the scout was grateful when Ironhide rolled into the garage. Mikaela stopped tinkering with whatever servo she was working on when the weapons specialist unfolded gracefully to protoform. "Ratchet, would you answer your commlink once in a while?"

Bumblebee's commlink had barely stirred since two in the afternoon the previous day, and then only because of a false Decepticon alert. The mech in question had turned out to be a creation of the Cube, and formerly a Mountain Dew vending machine. Although it spoke rudimentary Cybertronian, it was rather like having found a rabid dog: no higher cerebral function and violent to the end. Ironhide and Prime had destroyed it with little trouble but not without disappointment. It had been, according to the last of Optimus' transmission on the matter, a very long time since he had seen a raw creation of the Allspark.

They could hardly help being what they were.

Ratchet didn't even look up at the other Autobot. "Unless it's urgent, I don't see any reason to allow myself to be distracted."

"Hm. You haven't recharged for close to sixty hours. Bumblebee won't be laughing if you hook his rear pistons to his pivot gears because your capacitors were low," Ironhide shot back.

"I think I know when I need to offline myself," Ratchet said tightly.

Ironhide glanced in Mikaela's direction and let out a burst of Cybertronian speech. Bumblebee tried not to cringe. "Not like you to freak out over someone losing their spark." He gestured at Jazz in a vague manner.

Ratchet dropped a laser scalpel on the floor. He met Ironhide's optics, answering in the same language. "Jazz's death was completely preventable. But that aside, this is not about him."

"Then get some slagging rest!" Ironhide snapped.

Mikaela's eyes were darting back and forth between the arguing mechs; not speaking a single word of Cybertronian herself, of course, she couldn't accurately gauge their anger.

Ratchet's jaw shifted his faceplates around, but he did not respond aloud again. Bumblebee was not privy to their argument, doubtless over a private commlink, but it was bound to be as explosive as anything else the two of them argued about. He whistled to Mikaela while the two older Autobots glared at one another.

"Uh … is everything okay?" Mikaela asked, her gaze shooting to Bumblebee. The yellow Autobot nodded and gestured with one arm to the servo in her hands, but Mikaela looked over her shoulder at Jazz's supine protoform; the shell's legs had been disassembled and lay neatly spread out across the back corner of the garage. "You all seem tense. He's … is he mad about …?"

"We aaall are … sad-d," Bumblebee managed. "But-t-t we canno-no-not cry."

Mikaela nodded, swallowing, and looked down at her hands. She nodded again, this time to herself.

Abruptly Ironhide dropped back down into his alt-mode, turned, and squealed out of the garage. Mikaela and Bumblebee both watched him go, and Ratchet cycled his vents. He settled back down to a seated position and resumed his work without a word.

Mikaela and Bumblebee held one another's gazes for a long moment. Then Mikaela turned back to her work and Bumblebee resumed being bored.

"Mikaela," Ratchet said after exactly six minutes of silence, calling the girl's attention. "I need to recharge soon, and I imagine you need sustenance. Ironhide will assist you around the city if you need it."

The young woman bit her lower lip briefly. "Um, yeah. I – that would be great. Thanks."

"No; I thank you for your help today, and yesterday," Ratchet answered. But he didn't look up from where he hunched over the tiny processors he worked on.

&

When Ratchet went offline at 3:08 PM, Ironhide showed up no more than two minutes later to pick up Mikaela. "Is Bumblebee going to be all right here by himself?" she asked as she climbed up into the Autobot's cab.

"Bumblebee will be fine," Ironhide said gruffly. "Prime's on his way, just in case. 'less you just sprouted some double-action grease-pounders or something, it's not like you're gonna do much to protect him from Barricade or the like anyway..." the Autobot's voice faded with his distance as he drove the human away.

And Bumblebee was alone with his thoughts for a short while – just as he had been for years. There wasn't, he reflected, much to be said for being alone. With luck, Bumblebee wouldn't be alone much at all for roughly a vorn, busy guarding Sam Witwicky.

He understood that young humans could gain and lose interest in one another very quickly, but Bumblebee hoped Sam had the good sense to keep his sights on Mikaela. She was intelligent, strong-willed, and brave; the Autobot adored her, as much as he could adore anyone he had known for so short a time.

A familiar Peterbilt truck rumbled into the garage.

Optimus couldn't stand up straight in the building without hunching over; even Ironhide and Ratchet came close to brushing their heads on the ceiling. Still, the leader of the Autobots unfolded into his protoform, crouching next to his smaller teammate. "I am told by Ratchet that you are not to talk," Optimus said gravely by way of greeting.

Bumblebee nodded before resting his chin on his forearms.

"I am also told I am to get my rear chassis in here for maintenance on the double, so you'll have some company tomorrow morning," Optimus added, a smile crossing his faceplates.

Bumblebee chirruped his amusement, but otherwise said nothing. It was difficult to assess his leader's mood. He was genuinely startled when his commlink blinked with a notification: _UPLINK REQUESTED. ACCEPT Y/N?_

The Autobot immediately accepted, strongly reminded of the first time the Prime had initiated such a request. He blinked up at Optimus gratefully. _Thank you, _he wrote.

"_I have not taken an occasion to speak with you since your capture at the bridge," _Optimus answered.

Bumblebee shuttered his optics upon that statement. _I … cannot say I was happy with your decision, sir, but I trust your judgment. My own assessment was that there were too many humans to provide assistance? _He appended a query to the statement.

"_That was my assessment, yes." _Optimus gazed down at Bumblebee with an inscrutable expression. _"Nonetheless, it was a difficult decision to make. Jazz especially lodged protest."_

Bumblebee's faceplates twitched into a grimace at the comment. _And yet, it may be my capture saved us all._ Would the Autobots have arrived in time to keep the Allspark out of Megatron's slowly thawing claws? Bumblebee still did not know how the Decepticons had learned of the Cube or Megatron's location in the first place. Too many variables lay between that moment and the present, and many of them were unknown: an intelligent guess as to the outcome if the circumstances had been any different was impossible.

"_Yes," _Optimus said. _"And on that matter: I commend you, Bumblebee, for your bravery and initiative, which saved the lives of the humans Sam and Mikaela and brought the Allspark into our hands."_

Such formal words were not to be taken lightly. The Cube had erased all evidence of what Bumblebee had endured in Sector Seven from his protoform if not his memory banks, but autonomy recommended itself by allowing the scout to keep that torture to himself. It was not the first time he had endured such a thing, nor would it be the last: he was not the only Autobot to endure things of that nature, either. Time had a way of taking the edge off memories, even if they did not dim for a Cybertronian as they did for a human. _Thank you, sir, _he said reverently.

"_I doubt very much it will be the last time such bravery is asked of you."_

_It won't be the last time you ask it of any of us, _Bumblebee protested. _We swore our allegiance to you and your cause of our own free will, and I, for one, continue to give that service freely. _He shifted on his chestplates, feeling that perhaps his fervent answer was a little too much like offering comfort that hadn't been asked for. _Also, I apologize for, er …_ _my panic at the bridge. _His fear had been reflexive, but hardly befitting a soldier.

"_Forgiven." _Optimus smiled. _"You could not hear us."_

Bumblebee fell silent. He wished he knew what words of reassurance his team had offered, if there had been any – what orders he might have lost to Frenzy's virus – but he brushed that aside. _Optimus, _he wrote, _what happens now?_

The Prime did not answer immediately, his optics dim with inner contemplation. The scout waited nearly two minutes for a reply. _"Now, we stay. We defend the humans from Decepticon retaliation." _Optimus cycled his vents, a rush of warm air that made Bumblebee flatten his sensors slightly. _"That which we have destroyed was the greatest weapon the Decepticons know to wield, but war drives each side to ever greater heights. Do not take your guardianship of Sam Witwicky lightly."_

_Never, sir, _Bumblebee promised. He hesitated. _Then the war will not end here._

"_I'm afraid nothing will end this war but the end of our race," _Optimus admitted.

A heavy thought, but the smaller Autobot could hardly imagine peace with the Decepticons: it seemed unlikely that the Decpticons could then imagine peace with the Autobots. The trust bonds were too long broken.

"_I should not burden you with such thoughts."_

Bumblebee shook his head. _I don't mind, sir._

But Optimus was apparently done sharing his innermost thoughts on the matter. His optics shifted towards Jazz's shell. _"When the time comes, we will mourn him properly," _the Prime stated. He glanced at Bumblebee. _"Use his parts well, friend."_

_Naturally, _Bumblebee agreed, with the barest uplifting of his faceplates in a smile.

&

_One week later_

Surely it was a most unusual caravan. Led by a sporty yellow-and-black-striped Camaro, a Peterbilt truck with red and blue flames painted across it, A GMC Topkick rolling on overlarge wheels, and a chartreuse-red H2 Hummer topped with fire and rescue lights weaved through the traffic of Tranquility. Behind them followed three smaller GMC SUVs, all sleek, black, and glowing with cleanliness. (By comparison, the more flashy cars leading the way seemed downright dull and scuffed.)

"_Why do those rust piles have to follow us again?" _Ironhide demanded.

"_Look on the bright side,_" Ratchet broke in. _"This is their last act as Sector Seven."_

_Chauffer duty STOP, _Bumblebee snickered. He might have been a tad uncomfortable alone, but surrounded by his teammates the idea of Sector Seven agents escorting the far more powerful (although gentile) extraterrestrial robots was almost funny.

Of course the scout had other reasons to be giddy at the moment. The team made their last turn onto a residential street (all using their turn signals, of course) and Bumblebee surged ahead for a moment, squealing into a hard right to roll up a particular driveway.

Optimus' engine revved with amusement. Ironhide let loose a rush of cycled air. "He got an overhaul. He wants to show off."

"Shut up. I want to see the boy's reaction," Ratchet growled. The three Autobots parked awkwardly behind Camaro and all over the road, blocking oncoming traffic heedlessly.

"_BACK IN BLACK! I HIT THE SACK! I BET YOU KNOW I'M GLAD TO BE BACK!" _the Camaro's speakers blasted through its open windows.

A familiar human practically hurled his upper body out of his window on the top floor, his eyes wide as he stared at the culprit.

"_YES I'M – LET LOOSE! FROM THE NOOSE! THAT KEPT ME HANGING ABOUT!"_

"Hey!" Ratchet snapped.

"Bumblebee!" Sam shouted. He disappeared from the window. It took him twelve seconds to get through the back door and on the driveway. The scout didn't let up on the music until Sam had burst through the porch door. "You're – holy crap, you look great," Sam breathed, running his hand over Bumblebee's hood and over the roof.

"Hellooo Sam-m." Bumblebee clicked.

"Haha, yeah, hi, uh, wow," Sam strung together a long series of interjections. "And everyone else, uh – wow." His eyes grew wide. "Is everything okay?"

Seeing as last time the Autobots had all gathered on his lawn they had been under the wire and mid-crisis, it seemed like a valid question. It was Optimus who answered. "Everything is fine, Sam. We simply came to escort a friend."

Sam beamed. "So he's all fixed?"

"As much as he's going to be," Ratchet replied.

"And he can stay with me?" Sam didn't wait for an answer. "What are you guys all going to do?"

"Oh," Ironhide put in, "we'll be around."

"Hiding," Optimus finished, "In plain sight."

&

Over the following months Bumblebee would find out the other uses of cars for adolescents (namely, a nice, secret place to 'make out' in or around). Ironhide, having found a sort of companionship with Captain Lennox, was sent to his home to act as liaison and guardian. Optimus and Ratchet both continued to act autonomously. There were bad days (when Barricade popped up on their collective radar), and there were neutral days (wasted idling in the school parking lot or house driveway). But mostly there were just a lot of good days.

For a while, there was peace.

_Fin_

_Song credits go to AC/DC ('Back in Black')._

_For a better post-movie fanfiction, read 'Bridges' by Dwimordene here on ff dot net. It's simply amazing. I wanted to cover some new material but that which I felt couldn't be left out was heavily influenced by Dwim's work. There's another story in here, but I think I'll save that for a standalone – the 'Bumblebee meets Sam's parents' story. Or you could just read Dwim's take (also amazing)._

_This story has been a blast to write. I've never churned out so many words so quickly. Judging from the novel adaptation of the new movie, the sequel might be almost as fun. (Canon note: Bumblebee is still kinda-mostly mute in the new movie.)_

_Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: Hellfirefanatic (thank you, hope you enjoyed!), leleana (sorry nothing exciting happened in this chapter), Anita H (I have to thank my friend Moonsheen for the MSDOS code version of the torture scene. It ended up being really chilling, so I'm glad you noticed!), Geekgirl (my pleasure!), Rena1 (that's really high praise. Thank you so very much!), and FinalFantasyNovel (I really wanted to get in that special Bumblebee and Mikaela stuff; I'm glad it came through. Sam is a savior on some levels, but Mikaela is almost even more like a friend. Sorry this last chapter wasn't very exciting – not much you can do with a crippled mech – but I hope you enjoyed it anyway!)._

_This story is COMPLETE. For those who would like to read my take on the second movie, please go to my profile here on ff dot net and click on the story entitled 'Finding Destiny'. (I know the title is cheesy but I figure that the second movie was cheesy enough for it, plus there was a lot of talk about destiny in it. Ahaha?)_

_Thank you to everyone who reviewed or reviews this story, and thank you so much for reading!_


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